


Believe Also in Me

by BrighteyedJill



Series: In My Master's House 'Verse [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, BDSM, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Humiliation, M/M, Master/Slave, Spanking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:48:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While battling insomnia, Lestrade remembers the uneasy early days of his life as a slave in Lord Mycroft’s house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to morganstuart for keeping a firm hand on the tiller of character development, jaune_chat for her constant cheerleading, and blue_eyed_1987 for, among other things, weeding out my ridiculous American notions about hot beverages.

**Previously, on In My Master’s House:**  
 _Two years ago, DI Gregory Lestrade worked a case with Lord Sherlock Holmes that went very wrong. Lestrade faced the hard reality of the Empire’s justice, and was saved from a sentence of hard labour only by being purchased as a slave by Lord Mycroft. In the intervening years, Lestrade has come to find satisfaction and pride in his role as Lord Mycroft’s personal slave, but recent events have begun to challenge Lestrade’s confidence in his master. After an incident last night in which Lord Mycroft allowed Lord Sherlock’s slave John Watson to be publically punished, Lestrade was banished from his master’s presence, and faces a night alone with his doubts._  
\----------------

 

The Holmes estate was never really silent. The footmen had the dining room to clear after dinner. Valets and ladies’ maids would attend to their masters’ needs when they retired. Personal slaves remained available into the wee hours, in case one of the guests acquired an urge. By then, the bakers began arriving in the kitchen to prepare for breakfast.

It was at that point in the house’s continuous activities that Lestrade found himself wandering the halls. He’d already completed every minor task that could conceivably count as his duty. Last, he’d checked in on his office and received an update from Sally on the evening’s developments (“All gossip about Lord Sherlock’s antics. If he wasn’t a Lord, I’d say the man was a real freak.”) and the next morning’s schedule (“Everything’s sorted with the erotic contortionist set.”). He hadn’t lingered, as he didn’t fancy questions and speculations about why he wasn’t spending the night in the usual way. That left him nowhere to go but back to the slave quarters.

Lestrade’s room seemed small and cold after so many nights in Mycroft’s quarters. He stripped off his clothing, but couldn’t be bothered to drag out the flannel pyjamas he hadn’t used in ages. Flopping face-first onto the hard mattress, he ordered his body to relax. It ignored him.

Lestrade breathed in the clean sheets, which smelled of nothing more than detergent. The last time he’d slept here had been—when? When Lord Mycroft had flown to Malta, where slaves weren’t welcome, back in July? No, that week Lestrade had crept into Mycroft’s room and spread out onto his side of the bed. 

Pathetic, that he couldn’t sleep without his master’s company. Though perhaps, in this case, the fact of Mycroft’s absence bothered him less than the reason for it. 

He tugged the duvet up over his head, as if that would shield him from his circling doubts. He hadn’t felt this unsure of his place since the early days of his slavery. Mycroft had never banished Lestrade before. Not this way, at least. Even at his most busy, Mycroft still wanted Lestrade near. Lestrade had learned how his master worked through a painstaking process of observation, evidence gathering, and trial and error. His knowledge of Lord Mycroft’s habits was surpassed only by Anthea. So why, now, would everything Lestrade worked out in the past suddenly cease to apply?

Lestrade shuffled around possible clues in his head, but came up with no coherent picture. It was a pity that the man he knew who was most adept at sussing out hidden motivations wasn’t available to ask. He’d told Lord Mycroft that he trusted him, and he resolved to continue to do so, until he had a damn good reason not to. He’d been too long with Mycroft to let uncertainty drive him mad now.

Still, he wished for a glance of Mycroft’s playfully coy expression, the subtle smile he wore when he said something like, “These things work themselves out,” or, “I shouldn’t be surprised to see this sorted by week’s end,” as if he hadn’t been manipulating events to his design all along. 

Lestrade needed that assurance now—that Mycroft had, as ever, considered all the variables, planned for every possible outcome, and taken firm control of the situation. He needed something fixed and true.

Lestrade pushed to his knees, leaving his face pressed into the pillow. Mycroft liked him like that, sometimes—when he was flush with victory after a successful negotiation, as close to giddy as he was capable of being. Though he usually preferred to let Lestrade do most of the work, in these moods Mycroft revelled in the chance to manhandle Lestrade, dragging him to this or that position, directing him with possessive touches. 

Lestrade reached between his legs to brush the back of his knuckles down the length of his cock, which swung heavy between his legs. He imagined he could feel Mycroft’s warm hand between his shoulder blades, pinning him. The firm touches were always reassurances: _I’m in charge. I’ll take care of everything._

Mycroft liked to prepare Lestrade thoroughly, sometimes until Lestrade lost patience and scraped together enough lucidity to issue semi-coherent pleas for more. Only when he had Lestrade hard and wanton would Mycroft finally take him, squeezing his hands around Lestrade’s hips and dragging him back. From his superior position, Mycroft could control the angle and force of the penetration with devastating accuracy. 

Lestrade’s hips shoved back reflexively at the memory, searching for stimulation. He wrapped his fingers around his cock and gave it a comforting tug. Mycroft might have denied him that indulgence just yet, preferring to help Lestrade hold out for a slower, more satisfying end to his pleasure. Once, he’d dragged Lestrade’s arms up behind his back and held them together, leaning in for leverage as his cock worked against the spot that made Lestrade gasp and shiver and rendering Lestrade helpless against his attentions. 

Now, without Mycroft to restrain him, Lestrade gave in to the urge to thrust through the tight circle of his hand. Pressing his face into the pillow muffled the harsh breath that sounded too loud in the empty room; he was used to holding back his own noises, the better to monitor those of his master. He could always tell when Mycroft was nearing climax by the gradual disruption of his technique: a groan that disturbed his measured breathing, a falter in the even rhythm of his thrusts, a desperate clutch marring his firm grip. Too proper to shout expletives or scream his release to the skies, Mycroft would instead bury himself fully inside Lestrade, grabbing at his shoulders or his hips to hold on like a drowning man while he reached completion in silence. When he could breathe again, he’d topple Lestrade onto his back and loom over him, scrutinizing Lestrade’s reactions as he worked him with both hands. 

Lestrade rolled over with a groan, letting his legs fall open wide as he stroked himself faster. If Lestrade closed his eyes, he could nearly hear Mycroft’s voice in his ear, whispering, “Yes.” Mycroft understood Lestrade’s body as well as he understood foreign economic policy or politics in the House of Lords, and could manipulate it as easily. 

Lestrade’s hand was a poor substitute for Mycroft’s expert ministrations, but his hips thrust up, his fingers squeezed, and he came picturing the gratified smile Mycroft always displayed when he brought Lestrade off. 

Lestrade wiped his hand on the sheets and rolled over, only to bump against the cold wall that abutted his narrow bed. “Fuck,” he muttered to the stones.

Boneless and wrung-out as he felt, the relentless worries crowded in even before the pleasurable shaking had subsided. He tried pressing his palms against his eyes, but exhaustion refused to take him. The questions and doubts circling his thoughts chased sleep far away.

Lestrade resisted the urge to indulge in a self-pitying sigh. Instead, he rolled out of bed and began to strip the sheets. Surely he could find something to occupy his time. That something would absolutely not be imagining what Mycroft was planning, because in that task, Lestrade had absolutely no hope of succeeding. He never had.  
\--  
\--

Lestrade stared at his hands as the evening meeting--muster, they called it, as if the cadre of personal slaves Mycroft kept was a fighting force--droned on around him. To his left and right, slaves younger and prettier than he were perched on chairs and chaises, all posed as if they'd had lessons in artfully draping themselves over the furniture. Jasper, the head personal slave, handed out assignments to his mostly-silent charges. 

A whipcord-thin man with close-cropped white hair and an elegant bearing, Jasper delivered his instructions as if they were battle plans. "Those of you without assignments will remain here after muster, as some of the North Austrian delegation prefer to make their own selection. Reports are expected before thirteen hundred hours tomorrow. That is all."

Around the room, the handful of slaves who'd been given assignments for the evening rose to make whatever preparations one made for entertaining visiting dignitaries or high-ranking members of the household. From his brief training period, Lestrade could imagine what expectations the masters had for these liaisons. He knitted his fingers together and squeezed, cursing the part of him that felt a rush of selfish relief at not being required to do the work these men and women did without complaint. 

"It's Gregory, isn't it?"

Lestrade looked up to see a sharp-faced beauty of a woman on the pure white chair beside his sofa watching him expectantly. 

"Lestrade," he said. "That's what they used to call me."

"It's first names for slaves around here, mostly.” The woman tilted her head to the side, examining him closely. “But do as you like. I'm Sally."

"Hello."

"Listen.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Do you know what you're doing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your duties? You come in here for muster, but you wander in and wander out, like it's your first AA meeting and you're not sure you have a problem."

"I suppose not, then." Lestrade frowned at her expectant expression. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"Not as such,” she said slowly. “It's not for me to say."

"Sally." Jasper appeared at the arm of the sofa. A slight frown marred his usual calm neutrality. "You'll need to get dressed for the selection."

"Of course." Her outfit looked perfectly presentable to Lestrade: a stripy dress variation of the black-and-white theme Lord Mycroft favoured for his personal slaves. Nevertheless, Sally unfolded herself from her chair and drifted out of the room with a long backwards glance. 

"It's my fault for keeping her," Lestrade said. 

"Yes it is.” Jasper threw a quick glance around the room before perching on the edge of the sofa next to Lestrade. “But you should listen to her. You know you're meant to be serving your master, yes? You come here because it's on the schedule you're given, but you can't check your obligation to him off a list. Duty isn’t a series of tasks."

"Lord Mycroft hasn't asked for me," Lestrade pointed out.

"Oh, and Lord Mycroft should be the one to work out how you can be of service?"

"Pardon me if I can't read the man's mind.” Lestrade drew in a deep breath. “Listen, I'm not trying to be... ungrateful. If he orders me to... I can follow orders, alright? If he wants me, he can ask for me."

Jasper stood in one sharp motion. His eyes fixed on the door for a moment before landing back on Lestrade. His expression had returned to careful blankness. "Do not come here any more. I won't have you poisoning their minds with this talk. You're excused from muster until further notice."

"What?” Lestrade rose to his feet. “What am I meant to--?"

"Lord Mycroft frowns on stupidity and helplessness,” Jasper said crisply. “I trust he wouldn't have taken you on if those were your dominant traits.” He stalked to the door and held it open. 

Lestrade, conscious of the eyes of a few remaining slaves, held his head high as he passed the doorway.

“Goodnight, Gregory,” Jasper said, and shut the door behind him.  
\--

Lestrade woke early, a habit carried over from years of going in at an indecent hour to tackle paperwork before the Yard grew too chaotic. The lingering questions he’d been turning over in his mind all night had worn down to sharp nubs, like pencils he used to chew at his desk. He needed information. And just like any investigation, the best place to start was with those who’d been around the neighbourhood a long while.

None of the other personal slaves were stirring at this hour, so Lestrade headed down the narrow back stairway to the ground floor, and across to the service wing. The pleasantly warm kitchen bustled with slaves and servants beginning the day’s tasks. Lestrade spotted an older woman with a thin, polished wood collar decorated with a flower pattern, who hummed tunelessly under her breath. 

“Excuse me.” Lestrade propped himself against the worktop a few feet down from where the woman was making entries in some sort of ledger. “Is there any chance of a cup of coffee?”

“You’ll have to wait until breakfast is served, or shift for yourself. I’ve enough to do without taking on duties as assistant junior undercook.” She glanced up to fix him with a hard look.

“Right.” Lestrade ducked his head. Considering how little autonomy slaves had, he should have realized that a simple favour held much more significance than he was used to. “Sorry.” He turned away, ready to hunt for coffee on his own, but her voice stopped him.

“Wait! You’re him, aren’t you?”

He turned back to see a wide-eyed expression on the woman’s face, and said slowly, “I’m Greg Lestrade.”

She stepped toward him to lay a gentle hand on his arm. “You helped our Lord Sherlock.”

“I... Not really,” he said faintly. He certainly wouldn’t have characterised events that way. In any case, he wanted to know how this woman had found out about his past. Did the whole household know? Was his disgrace a matter of public record?

“Come, sit down. I’ll start on that coffee.” She tugged him farther into the kitchen and installed him at a table by the window overlooking the courtyard.

“Ma’am— ”

“Mrs. Hudson,” she corrected as she switched on the coffee maker. 

“Mrs. Hudson. How did you hear about... what happened?”

“Oh, I don’t really know the specifics. Lord Sherlock dropped a few hints.” She continued to bustle about the kitchen as she spoke, depositing sugar, milk, and a mug before Lestrade. “He was only here briefly, a few weeks back. Came to see his brother—I remember because that’s hardly something you see every day is it? Toast?”

“Love some.”

“He was in a bad way.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You know how he gets, worked up over his little projects—but he stopped by to see me. Said to keep an eye out for you, and here you are!”

“Do you work for him, then? Lord Sherlock?”

“Oh, I’ve been with the Holmes family for ages.” She poured a generous mug of coffee from the heavenly-smelling pot. “How do you take it?”

“Black is fine.”

“Lord Sherlock’s always been a handful, but terribly clever. He helped me with a problem I had with my husband.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Lestrade wrapped his hands around the mug, letting it warm his suddenly-cold hands. He felt a peculiar discomfort when he imagined Lord Sherlock running about solving mysteries without anyone to keep his reckless impulses in check. Not that Lestrade had been particularly effective at that. “Does your husband work here, then?”

“Oh no, dear. He’s dead.” She set a jar of greengage jam on the table and gave Lestrade a cheerful smile. 

“I’m sorry,” he offered.

“Don’t be. I’m certainly not. Here’s the toast.” She brought over a plate and a rack of slightly burnt white toast, and settled into the seat across from him. “Lord Sherlock didn’t have to help me. Goodness knows I couldn’t give him much in return. He’s a lovely boy. Busy brain gets him into trouble, but he does like to help.”

“Nothing better than a puzzle for him.” Lestrade thought of the amazing things Sherlock had done in the length of their acquaintance. He couldn’t imagine having seen Sherlock grow up from childhood, working intellectual miracles in the nursery. “He’s a great man, isn’t he?”

“I’ve always thought so.” Her smile warmed. “They’re very different, Lord Mycroft and Lord Sherlock. I imagine you’re getting to know Lord Mycroft much better.”

“Not really.” Lestrade selected the least-burnt piece of toast, and began scraping some jam across it, to keep his hands busy. “I haven’t been given anything to do.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hudson leaned back in her chair, frowning slightly. “Well have you asked, dear?”

“I’m not going to beg him for purpose.” The words came out more sharply than he’d intended. He set down his knife. He was meant to be looking for information, not venting his frustrations. “I mean, if he wants me to do something, he only has to say so.”

“Dear.” She patted his hand. “I’ve known Lord Mycroft since he was in nappies. I wouldn’t call him a paragon of patience.”

Lestrade took her hand in both of his and smiled. “Then it’s a good job I’ve got enough for two.”  
\--

Among her many positive qualities, Mrs. Hudson counted an exhaustive knowledge of where to acquire anything one might want on the estate. Her assistance saw Lestrade out in the courtyard behind the kitchens, lighting his first cigarette in weeks. 

Smoking gave Lestrade a reasonable excuse to hang about the grounds, learning the daily business of the estate. In a few days he’d begun to learn the rhythms of the household beyond the claustrophobic confines of the slave quarters. The groundskeepers maintained extensive gardens, chauffeurs polished the fleet of sleek black cars, labourers unloaded deliveries to the kitchens or the housekeeping office, and blue-uniformed house security guards watched over the whole operation.

On a cloudy Tuesday morning, Lestrade thought briefly, idly, of how he might escape—ride out in a laundry van or some such nonsense. He rolled his shoulders back and imagined he could feel the scar at the base of his spine where the chip with the GPS tracker had been implanted. Even if he hadn’t been tagged like a pet, he had no destination in mind should he make it out. His old life—all the work he’d done, and the position he’d earned by late-night stake-outs, early mornings poring over evidence, and exhausting afternoons canvassing around crime scenes-- had been irrevocably destroyed. Without his work, Lestrade had nothing worth escaping for. He watched a laundry delivery van rattle toward the gate, then ground his cigarette butt into the flagstones with his heel. 

With no appointments to keep, Lestrade could wander the grounds at will. He’d found that if he didn’t draw attention to himself, his collar rendered him all but invisible to guards and free men. 

On this particular morning, Lestrade set off through the kitchen garden. He had a mind to see how far the planned gardens extended before giving way to heath or woodland. It would be nice to find a place to go for a long, calming run where the eyes of the household wouldn’t be on him.

He came through a gate in the hedge at the end of a bed of cabbages to find himself facing an open expanse of grass. A small group of slaves—some in household uniforms, some stripped down to the waist, all wearing collars--were running and shouting. Lestrade spotted a flash of black and white streaking across the grass between two of them: a football.

A stray kick sent the ball skidding in Lestrade’s direction. He jogged the short distance to intercept, and stopped the ball with his foot. 

The players who’d been running after the ball slowed, and then stopped. The others drew closer. All of them stared at Lestrade. He tried not to think about how out-of-place he looked: heavy leather collar, tailored black pants and shirt, dress shoes. 

“Need an extra player?” he asked.

“Is he serious?” One of them—a dark-haired boy with ears that stuck out from his head—asked with a glance down the line at his friends.

“It’s the new bed slave,” said another, older bloke, skinny, with a trimmed beard.

“How do you know?”

“Look how he’s dressed!”

A third one, with an unruly tussle of blond curls, stepped toward Lestrade. “Are you being serious?”

“I’d like to play, if you want another player,” Lestrade said. 

Another man, this one with thick muscles and a deep frown, stepped forward. “Don’t you have someone’s cock to be sucking?” 

Everyone’s attention sharpened. Lestrade felt the group tense—wondering how he’d react. He’d dealt with toughs, with gangs, and with scared, posturing bullies as a DI; with a warm bloom of pleasure, he realized this was something he could easily handle. He offered the bloke an understanding smirk and said, “I got off early.”

Everyone laughed. “I like him,” said the blond. 

The others started to come closer. “You’re really Lord Mycroft’s?” one of them asked. “His alone?”

“I suppose, yeah,” Lestrade said, though he felt like a bit of a fraud claiming to serve a man he hadn’t seen in days. 

“He talks to you?” asked one of the youngest in the group, a ginger boy with abundant freckles. “Touches you? Jaysus, I can’t imagine him looking down his long nose far enough to get a leg over.”

“Shut it, you.” The curly-headed man gave the ginger’s shoulder a punch. “No talk against the master.”

“Not in front of him, anyway,” said the frowning one.

“Are we playing, then?” Lestrade asked.

“C’mon, Colin,” said the boy with the stick-out ears. “It’s better four on four.”

“He’s not one of us,” said the frowner--Colin, apparently.

“He’s got a collar on him, don’t he?”

“You can put a collar on a dog. Doesn’t make him one of us.”

“Piss off.” The curly-headed blond shot Colin a two-fingered salute before throwing his arm around Lestrade’s shoulder. “Come on, mate. What’s your name?”

“Lestrade.”

“I’m Liam.” He gestured to the rest of the group. “These are the boys. You any good as a forward?”  
\--

The following Tuesday, Lestrade crawled out of bed feeling every day his age. He stretched in the confines of his tiny room. He hadn’t done much actual chasing after criminals after he’d been promoted to DI, but he could almost imagine the burn in his legs had been earned by a chase through the London streets rather than a handful of afternoons kicking a ball around with fellow slaves who barely tolerated him. 

In the kitchen, he accepted a cup of coffee from Mrs. Hudson and took it to what was rapidly becoming his usual spot at the table by the window. Mrs. Hudson would often sit down and chat in between the rhythmic flurry of her morning duties. They’d have toast, and Mrs. Hudson would share gossip about the kitchen slaves until she had to get back to her work.

Lestrade’s mornings had become routine in a way that would have been comforting if it hadn’t highlighted the complete lack of purpose he served in the house. As he sipped his coffee, he thought of the murder of Brenda Tregennis, one of the cases turned over to DI Dimmock after his arrest. He wondered, in the press of so many other responsibilities, if Dimmock had even had the time to look at the file. Dimmock might be sitting in his office right now with a cup of coffee, wishing he only had a spare hour to re-question the vicar, as Lestrade had made a note about doing.

“You’re up early.” Sally slid into the chair across the table and set down her coffee mug. Her eyes were puffy and slightly bloodshot, and she wore a loose-fitting white jumper over dark jeans. 

“I’m always up around this time. Have you been to sleep yet?”

Sally shook her head as she stirred a generous spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “Just dismissed. I prefer to write the report immediately. That way I don’t have to bother with it later. I’ll sleep before muster.”

“Are you alright?” Lestrade looked at her hands wrapped around the coffee mug, perfectly relaxed. His eyes tracked up to her closed-off expression, and he frowned. “I just, sorry. Only meant... Did you have a good night? Shit, that doesn’t sound right, either.”

“It’s fine. Jasper always says, ‘Anything worth telling?’ He has a queer sense of humour.” She took a sip of her coffee and watched Lestrade over the rim of her mug. “But yes. Lord Pennington is a regular guest at the estate. He’s instrumental to upholding the economic sanctions against the Roman Republic. Brilliant man. Speaks four languages.”

“Bully for him.” Lestrade sipped his own coffee and tamped down the shame that welled up at the reminder of his uselessness. He couldn’t have claimed accomplishments like that even when he’d been free, but at least he’d been doing some small good, in his way. Now, he couldn’t even claim that. “So you like him well enough, sounds like.”

“He’s not particularly difficult, only he keeps odd hours. Like Lord Mycroft.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Lestrade hadn’t even caught a glimpse of his master in more than a week.

“What do you do with your time, then?” She glanced around the kitchen, as if she might find some evidence of how Lestrade spent his idle hours. “I mean, what can you possibly do all day around here?”

“I...” Lestrade pressed his lips together. He couldn’t even claim to be providing entertainment for great men like Lord Pennington, who were doing the real work of the Empire. He had nothing to say for himself. 

“Right. Sounds very fulfilling.”

Lestrade squeezed his fingers around his mug. Words echoed in his memory, so derisively spoken only a few weeks ago, during his first interview with Mycroft: _“Are there people who find slavery fulfilling, sir?”_ He’d been so sure, then, that any chance to do something worthwhile in his life had been over, and so far, he’d made that belief a reality. 

“Not particularly,” he muttered. When Sally’s expression threatened to become sympathetic, he quickly threw on a strained smile. “Well, there’s always the football. Some of the boys from the gardens and stables have a regular game. Passes the time.”

“Oh.” She squinted at him, as if trying to work out if there was meant to be a punch line. 

“Right.” Lestrade drained the rest of his coffee in one long gulp; it tasted more bitter than usual. “I’m going for a smoke. Do you want one?”

“No, thank you.” Her eyes trailed Lestrade all the way to the door.  
\--

“Lestrade,” Oliver said. Heedless of the persistent misty rain, he kicked the ball to another of the half-dozen slaves already assembled. “Why is it you’re allowed to be around so much? Don’t you ever have, y’know, duties?”

Rory slapped Oliver in the back of the head. “No, tosser, he works the night shift.”

Liam toed the ball up to bounce against his knee, then kicked it over to Lestrade. “Yeah, and spends it all lying on his back, lazy arse.”

“Leaves me the energy to run you and up and down the field.” Lestrade said, and kicked the ball past Oliver, sending him running.

“I heard he doesn’t even use you.” Colin walked up the path to join the group, and stood with his arms crossed.

“What?” Lestrade felt heat creeping up his neck as the others stopped to watch the exchange.

“My sister’s in the household guard. She says he never has a slave in at night.” Colin looked Lestrade up and down. “You must be a pretty big disappointment, if he didn’t even want to try you.”

“Hey!” Liam called. “We going to play, or you going to talk shite all day?”

Colin shrugged. “Let’s play, then.”

Oliver threw the ball in, and everyone turned their attention to the game. The flush receded from Lestrade’s face once the attention of the other slaves was elsewhere, but as he ran, he felt off-balance, as if the pitch had begun to roll beneath his feet. 

The grass was damp from the continuous mist drifting down from the wispy clouds, so the ball skidded faster than usual. Colin kicked past Rory’s block for an early goal, and after that Lestrade lost himself in running and passing, keeping his eyes on the ball and on his teammates. 

After a quick turnaround, Lestrade found himself between Colin and the goalkeeper. Colin drove the ball hard down the pitch, but Lestrade kept in front of him, running flat out. If he could just get the right angle, he might be able to—

“Gregory!”

Lestrade’s head snapped up, and his feet faltered. Colin’s shoulder slammed into his, sending Lestrade spinning, then tumbling face-first into the muddy grass. 

When he righted himself, he saw his fellow players standing still, staring towards the far edge of the pitch by the neatly-trimmed hedgerow where there stood two figures, surreally formal in pristine black and white: Sally and Jasper. 

Lestrade wiped the dirt and damp out of his eyes as he stood. The other players stared at the ground as they moved slowly away. Liam, ball tucked under his arm, gave Lestrade a sympathetic glance as he passed. 

Lestrade trudged down the length of the field, increasingly aware of his unpresentable state: sweat-stained shirt clinging to his back, muddy flecks spattering his trousers to the knee, and hair standing up at all angles. 

Jasper held his hands clasped behind his back, like a prisoner facing a firing squad. He didn’t take his eyes off Lestrade. Sally, hands shoved in her pockets, stared at the ground.

Lestrade felt as if he should bow, or possibly salute, but instead he came to a stop a few feet away, and said, “You called?”

Jasper focused his gaze somewhere to the left of Lestrade’s ear, as if he couldn’t be lowered to address him directly. “Are you deliberately trying to bring disgrace on your position, or does your wilful ignorance simply stretch credulity?”

Lestrade gritted his teeth before answering. With the same studied patience he’d used with his first DCI—the one who’d never trusted him to do his job—he asked, “Have I done something wrong?”

“Wilful ignorance, then. I believe that may actually be worse. Excuse me.” Jasper turned sharply on his heel and stalked off down the path. 

Sally’s eyes followed his retreat, then returned to scrutinizing Lestrade. “You should apologize to him.”

“If I knew what I was apologizing for, I’d consider it.” The unpleasant feeling of vertigo had returned, but Lestrade refused to let it deter him. He’d nothing to be ashamed of—any logical person would swear to it.

“Are you really so thick?” Sally asked. “Why did all your little friends slink off when they saw us? They knew you weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? It’s not as if I’ve got a jam-packed schedule.”

“You’re the highest ranking personal slave in the house.” Sally’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You’re supposed to be... It’s not something you... You should know why!”

“They must have forgotten to install my mind-reading chip with my tracker.” Lestrade spread his arms. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That is obvious, thanks. What if you’d got hurt? Turned an ankle? Taken an elbow to the face. You can’t have a cut showing, or a bloody lip. The Lord of Westminster can’t be seen next to a slave with a sodding black eye!”

“I’m not seen with him at all,” Lestrade snapped.

“But you should be! Do you have any idea how many slaves would kill to have the job you think you’re too good for? You’re supposed to be representing us—the epitome of personal service in the household, our voice in the Lord’s ear, but you’re...” She waved at the muddy pitch, now deserted. “You’re here instead.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead.

Lestrade saw the tiredness settle onto her like a tangible weight, and remembered that she’d been up all night, going about her duties. She’d contributed to the working of the household—the _Empire_ \-- while he’d been running from his obligations. “Sally.” Lestrade took a slow step forward.

“I have to go to muster.” She sped off down the path to the house.

Lestrade stood watching her go for a full minute before turning around to scan the field. The other slaves were nowhere to be found. He trudged back to the house in the steadily increasing rain. He stopped by his room only long enough to grab a towel. 

With the rest of the personal slave contingent at muster, Lestrade had the communal shower to himself. He turned the control as hot as he could bear, and stood under the spray with his hands against the wall. The water washed away the dirt and sweat of the day’s exertions, but not the festering shame that crept along his skin, a persistent residue of his humiliation.

The door to the room opened and closed, letting in a rush of cold air. Lestrade wiped the water away from his eyes in time to see Anthea appear in the shower doorway, a prudent distance from the spray. She held her Blackberry in both hands, and her eyes never strayed from the screen. “Hey,” she said.

“Hello,” Lestrade ventured. Anthea didn’t reply, so Lestrade ducked his head under the water again. If she expected him to cower naked, waiting for their master’s orders, she would have to be disappointed. 

He washed his hair, rinsed it, and still she stood there. She looked as if she’d be content to wait all night, if necessary, for Lestrade to provide her due attention. The itch under his skin intensified. A childish urge struck him: to refuse whatever orders Anthea had come to deliver. Then the impulse bled out of him and left him empty. Or perhaps he’d been empty before, and hadn’t let himself feel it.

He twisted the knob to turn off the water, and braced his hands against the wall again. “If you’ve come to give me a lecture, I’ve got to tell you I’m full up. Probably couldn’t stand even a short lecture at this point. I’ve had a very busy day of being told how deeply inadequate I am in the eyes of everyone within ten miles of here. So if you could save whatever you have to say for another time, I’d be much obliged.”

“Been working up to that, have you?” She glanced up from the screen and quirked an eyebrow at Lestrade in a way that reminded him of Lord Mycroft. 

“A bit, yeah.” The beginnings of a rueful smile threatened Lestrade’s foul mood.

Anthea looked back at her Blackberry and held out his towel. Lestrade took it. 

After a perfunctory dry-off, he wrapped the towel around his waist, leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. “So you’re not here to lecture, then?”

“I’m sure you’ve enough going on up there. Or, enough for anyone who isn’t a Holmes.”

“Right.” Because of course the Holmes Lords could keep a dozen threads of thought woven together in an elegant web, and use just one of them to keep a lowly Detective Inspector from disaster. Lestrade had held onto a stubborn speck of pride that said he was more than this—that he had a calling he’d trained for, that he was somehow wasting his time here. But no. He’d thrown that life away, and only Lord Mycroft’s intervention had saved him from a slow end working himself to death in the blazing Australian sun. That speck of pride had to be shaped to a new purpose: serving the Empire in the only role left to him. His pride now depended on his ability to please his master. “Anthea,” he began, “could I--?”

“I keep Lord Mycroft’s diary, you know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I know where he is and what he’s doing every hour of the day.”

Lestrade ran both hands through his damp hair. A few stray drops of water landed on his shoulders and rolled down his back, sending a shiver down his spine as he thought of what Lord Mycroft might be up to right now. He didn’t know the first thing about the man, and yet, he could picture him quite clearly: his ruler-straight posture, the small wrinkle that formed momentarily between his eyebrows when he heard an answer he didn’t anticipate, the way his eyes tracked motion like a bird of prey. 

“You know,” Lestrade said, “I feel as if I’m playing a game where everyone except me knows the rules.”

“Welcome to life with Lord Mycroft. You get used to it after a while. Or you go mad.” Anthea scrolled through a document on her phone. “Listen, he has audiences tomorrow morning. All well-established contacts, all mid-level security clearance. Are you busy between nine-thirty and eleven?”

“Not really, no.”

“Good.” Her fingers danced on the tiny keyboard. “I’ll send the details to your tablet.”

“Anthea.” He pushed off the wall and stood holding his towel, only a token comfort in a place where he owned not even himself. “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

Anthea gripped her Blackberry tightly and fixed her eyes on Lestrade. “Do you want to?”

Lestrade swallowed hard against the weight of his collar. The last heat of his frustration melted to form a tangled knot of some new emotion, lodged tightly below his sternum. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“That’s a start.”  
\-- 


	2. Chapter 2

Gregory stood just inside the door to Lord Mycroft’s office with his hands clasped before him. He’d read and re-read the instructions Anthea had sent, but still uncertainty gnawed at the edges of his composure. He exhaled slowly, trying to banish doubt with his new-found resolution: he would find a way to be useful. Somehow. Success meant contributing to the smooth running of the Empire, as it always had done. His contribution now was of a different nature, that was all. 

The door to the office swung open. In strode Lord Mycroft in a crisp navy suit and highly polished shoes. As soon as he crossed the threshold, his attention snapped to Lestrade. His momentum carried him a few more steps, and then he drifted to a stop, like a car run out of petrol.

Lestrade risked an upward glance and caught sight of Lord Mycroft’s raised chin and narrowed eyes. He quickly returned his gaze to its proper place, fixed on the floor. Though he hadn’t been this close to his master since their initial interview, the mental picture Lestrade had been harbouring matched reality in every detail. “Good morning, sir,” he said.

Lord Mycroft strode back to the door. “Anthea!”

She appeared in the doorway with her ever-present Blackberry at the ready. “Yes, sir?”

“Has there been a change in my schedule I should know about?”

“No, sir,” she said. Lestrade couldn’t see her expression, but he could imagine her picking up some subtle clue in Lord Mycroft’s attitude. “Gregory asked to attend you during the morning audiences,” she offered.

“Did he.” Lord Mycroft didn’t sound entirely convinced.

“Shall I bring in Lord Hayles when he arrives?”

“Yes, yes.” 

Anthea slipped through the door and closed it after her, leaving Lestrade alone with his master. Lord Mycroft stood still for long enough to make Lestrade re-examine his stance. Was there some error in his presentation? Had he already displeased his master?

But without a word, Lord Mycroft turned way. He settled into the chair behind his desk and picked up a neat stack of papers.

Right, that was Lestrade’s cue. He came to Lord Mycroft’s side and had begun to kneel when Lord Mycroft held up a finger. 

Without looking away from his reading, he said, “You may stand by the wall when I’m at my desk, or at the conference table. Kneel in attendance if we move to the sitting area.”

Lestrade nodded his understanding and moved to the wall. The correction didn’t sting as much as he thought it might; it gave him something to focus on and work towards, even if it was minor. In any case, he would need to learn to embrace all the corrections Lord Mycroft offered if he hoped to be of actual use. He’d learned the hard way in his first years at the Yard that ignoring the rules didn’t lead to great harmony with his superiors. 

Lestrade settled into the proper stance: feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped in front of him, head bowed. He listened to the soft sounds of rustling paper and the occasional scratch of a pen. If he concentrated on holding his position perfectly, Lestrade found that his mind could drift quite pleasantly in idleness. After some time, a twinge in his hip—still aching from his fall yesterday—caught his attention, and he shifted his weight. 

Lord Mycroft started in his chair, bracing his hand on the desk. 

Lestrade didn’t raise his eyes, but he could feel Lord Mycroft’s attention on him. 

“I had forgotten you were actually there,” Lord Mycroft said at last. He turned back to his desk, but the sounds of pen and papers moving did not resume.

A knock sounded at the door. At Lord Mycroft’s acknowledgement, Anthea led in a short man in a bulging waistcoat and slightly-too-short jacket, presumably Lord Hayles, followed by a collared man who took up a post behind the chair facing the desk. Lord Mycroft greeted his guest, and the two began their business without delay.

Lestrade stood quietly, hearing every word but catching the sense of perhaps one sentence in three. He threaded his fingers together and forced his shoulders to relax. He would make what observations he could without giving in to the temptation to watch. This was only the first meeting of many. If he hoped to be of any use of Lord Mycroft, he’d need to do more than simply stand around like a well-trained pet. He closed his eyes and listened.  
\--

The morning passed quickly. Anthea escorted guests in and out at regular intervals. Occasionally Lord Mycroft would jot down a few notes between visitors, or take a sip of tea from a cup that seemed perpetually steaming. Perhaps Anthea found time to refill it while texting with one hand. 

At ten, just after Lady McKeen had been shown out, Lestrade’s stomach let out an audible growl. He’d forgone his usual toast and coffee with Mrs. Hudson in the interest of making it to Lord Mycroft’s office on time. Lord Mycroft turned slightly at the noise, and Lestrade braced himself for a reprimand. 

Instead, Lord Mycroft pulled open the third drawer on the left side of the desk. He produced a tin of biscuits, prised open the lid, and offered it to Lestrade. “I recommend the chocolate-dipped shortbreads,” he said. 

Lestrade desperately wanted to see Lord Mycroft’s face, to determine if it held humour or disdain, but he suspected that even if he had leave to look, he’d find his master’s expression unreadable. 

Lestrade selected a biscuit—one of the orange gingersnap variety, not a chocolate shortbread. “Thank you, sir.”

Lord Mycroft replaced the tin without further comment. 

At 10:30, Lord Mycroft moved to the sitting area to talk with Lord Worsley about civil defence arrangements on the Isle of Wight, and remained there for his next appointment as well. Lestrade had been glad of a chance to rest his legs, at first, but eventually his knees began to protest.

Lestrade flicked his eyes over to check on Lady Okoye’s slave. She remained still: legs crossed, hands on her knees, head tucked down. She’d been on the floor at her mistress’s side, as unmoving as a statue, for the past twenty minutes. Lestrade envied the slave her apparent serenity. Right about now he also begrudged her the protocol of the Yoruba Empire, which allowed its slaves to select from among a variety of deferential postures to match different occasions. He’d read about it in _Freedom Thorough Obedience_ , in the chapter “Proper presentation: submission in motion.” The etiquette of the British Empire, of course, required a proper kneel for almost every situation. 

Lestrade resisted the urge to shift his weight as his knees registered a worsening ache. He attempted to distract himself with his master’s conversation, but he knew only a few words of Yoruba, and so couldn’t follow anything being said. He chanced lifting up a bit to get some circulation back in his knees. 

Lord Mycroft detected the shift almost immediately. His fingers came to rest lightly on Lestrade’s shoulder. “Gregory, get some water for me and Lady Okoye.”

Whether or not Mycroft had actually realized Lestrade’s discomfort and taken pity, Lestrade couldn’t help feeling grateful for the chance to move and to fulfil a function other than the ornamental. He pushed himself carefully to a standing position, keeping his face turned away to hide the grimace as feeling flooded back into his legs. Conscious of his every move, he found a jug of water at the sideboard and poured two tall glasses. With one in each hand, he returned to the conversation. 

From the proper place on Lord Mycroft’s left, Lestrade presented the water with a bow. Mycroft plucked the glass from Lestrade’s hand without interrupting the flow of the discussion. 

Lestrade moved across the room, keeping his eyes carefully downcast, positioned himself to Lady Okoye’s left, in front of her posing slave, and offered the water to his master’s guest. 

Conversation stopped. Lady Okoye’s attention snapped to Lestrade. Even Lady Okoye’s slave sat up a bit taller. For one desperate moment, Lestrade hoped the interruption had nothing to do with him. Perhaps Lord Mycroft had just said something shocking. Then Lady Okoye spoke again. “What is the meaning of this, Lord Holmes?”

He answered in calm, measured Yoruba.

“I see. You.” She looked hard at Lestrade, who kept his eyes carefully averted. “Explain yourself.”

Lestrade delved into his small store of knowledge about proper slave duties and behaviour, but could find no clue as to what he’d done wrong, or how to excuse it.

Lord Mycroft spoke again, as evenly as before, but at more length this time. 

Lady Okoye responded heatedly, and their raised voices began to overlap, sending rapid-fire Yoruba flying across the space between them. 

At last, a tense pause took shape. Lady Okoye leaned back in her chair and made an impatient gesture. Her slave reached up and plucked the glass of water from Lestrade’s hands. She presented it to Lady Okoye, who accepted it without looking, took a dainty sip, and handed it back. 

Lestrade nodded to the other slave and hastened back to his post at Lord Mycroft’s side. 

The conversation resumed at a more sedate pace, as if the tension of the last minutes had been an invention of Lestrade’s wandering mind. Just a few minutes later, Lady Okoye rose to take her leave. 

When she’d gone, Lord Mycroft stood by the door with his hand pressed against the wood.

Lestrade unfolded from his knees and ventured toward his master. “Sir, I’m sorry I—“

“Yes. Lady Okoye will be cured of thinking me overly deferential, that’s certain.” Lord Mycroft turned and placed a hand on Lestrade’s shoulder. “You didn’t know.”

“Yes, sir.” He considered Jasper’s words to him, and Sally’s, and Anthea’s, and came to an uncomfortable conclusion. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? Everyone in this house knows his job, is the best at his job, in fact. Here I am, like it’s my first day at—“ He quickly bit back any mention of his former life. “I mean to say, I can’t possibly be of any use to you if I bollix up every little task. Sir.”

Lord Mycroft’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “And you’d like to be... of use to me?”

Lestrade couldn’t hope to suss out all the meaning packed into that one question, especially without the benefit of being able to look Lord Mycroft in the face. “That’s what you bought me for, isn’t it, my lord?”

“Mm.” Lord Mycroft lifted his hand from Lestrade’s shoulder and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “I’ll make arrangements for supplementary instruction. That will be all for now.”  
\--

A message appeared on Lestrade’s tablet after he’d sat down to lunch in the kitchen: _Lord Mycroft’s workroom, 14:30. Dress comfortably – Anthea_.

Lestrade stared at the message for a full minute, trying to parse its meaning. “Sally, where’s Lord Mycroft’s workroom?”

From her spot across the table, she paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “I didn’t know he had one. It’s... Most masters keep equipment there and use it for discipline sessions.”

Lestrade looked up from his tablet, and found in Sally’s expression a confirmation of what he feared that meant. “Well. My presence is requested there this afternoon.”

“Oh.” Her mouth curved into a tight frown, the way it did when she wanted to say something but wouldn’t. “You can look up any room location on the intranet. Let me know show you. I’m almost as good as having an IT guy.” Sally reached a hand out for his tablet, and Lestrade handed it over. 

Lestrade picked up his sandwich, but found his appetite had fled. He had said he wanted to be of service. Already, after just a morning, Lestrade had learned more about his master’s work than he had in weeks of idleness. If the price for that was enduring punishment for his failings, he’d take it without complaint. He couldn’t expect to be given responsibilities he hadn’t earned.

“Here.” Sally handed back the tablet. “It’s on the map, there. Guess it does exist.” She jabbed at her salad with a fork. “Listen, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble with Lord Mycroft. Over the football, I mean.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sally. You did what you thought was right. I screwed up on my own.” He tucked his tablet under his arm and picked up his plate. “Thanks for the tech help.”  
\--

Lestrade stood in the centre of the workroom with his eyes closed, just breathing. He could still clearly picture the sight he’d seen when he stepped inside: low ceiling, dark wood panelling, intricately tiled floor, a rack displaying paddles, whips and crops, a table crowded with phallus-shaped implements, a giant wooden x, a padded sawhorse, and a stately armchair at one end of the room, grouped with a small end table and tasteful lamp. He couldn’t have imagined a more stereotypical setting for a noble to punish his recalcitrant bed slave. 

Lestrade allowed himself ten seconds of desperately wishing to be elsewhere: behind his desk at New Scotland Yard, at his Southwark flat watching telly, in the kitchen talking with Mrs. Hudson, down the back garden playing football. Anywhere. Then he opened his eyes, leaving the panic behind. He’d resolved to do whatever was necessary to be of service to his master. Besides, he’d _asked_ for more training. 

Behind Lestrade, the door knob turned, and the heavy door creaked open. He held himself still and channelled all of his concentration into resisting the urge to run or fight. 

“You must excuse the setting. I didn’t want us to be interrupted.”

Lestrade turned quickly at the sound of a voice far different to the one he’d expected. 

Jasper shifted a stack of books to the crook of his left arm and pushed the door shut. “At least you’re on time.”

“Why are you here?”

“I believe you mean, ‘Thank you so much, Jasper, for taking time out of your busy schedule to correct my deficiencies,’” Jasper said stiffly.

“Oh.” Lestrade’s eyes strayed to the rack of implements that stood ready to administer correction. 

“Gregory.” Jasper demanded his attention again. His expression had shifted—perhaps a crease had formed along his forehead. “Not that way.” He followed the path of Lestrade’s gaze. “Did you think he would punish you for your ignorance?”

“The Lord can do as he pleases.”

“Yes. Though he’s never elected to punish his slaves in the way you’re thinking.” Jasper cleared a spot on the nearest table to set down his stack of books. “As head of the personnel slaves, I administer correction in the manner I choose, which is not always the manner his Lordship would have chosen. We’ve had many spirited discussions on the matter.”

An incredulous chuckle escaped Lestrade. It seemed his lingering adrenaline had elected to express itself in a kind of heady hysteria.

Jasper raised an eyebrow at him. “Something’s funny?”

“I can’t imagine anyone coming off the better end of a ‘spirited discussion’ with Lord Mycroft.”

“You’ve not spent much time with him.” Jasper pointed a bony finger at Lestrade. “And that, in part, explains your lack of appropriate skills.”

“So,” Lestrade said, to verify that he’d read the situation correctly, “You can teach me?”

“My dear boy, I daresay that whatever I’m able to impart will constitute an improvement. Let’s begin.”  
\--

Lestrade reflected, halfway through the first week, that he hadn’t managed to find time in his new schedule to wallow, agonize, or even brood. He woke early for breakfast—to avoid a repeat of the rumbling stomach incident-- and spent each morning attending Lord Mycroft at audiences, but his afternoons belonged to Jasper. 

“Keep your back straight when you kneel,” Jasper would say, pressing his fist against Lestrade’s spine to demonstrate.

Or, “On the left, boy, left,” when Lestrade practiced serving.

In the corridor, a whispered, “Eyes down when she passes.”

“Elbows in, are you trying to take up the whole room?”

“Answer faster, Gregory. Three cultural traditions which forbid kneeling at table. Go.”

“No, don’t tuck your head. Deferential, not afraid. Better.”

At the end of a week, Lestrade had stopped freezing in indecision when a Lady passed him in the hall, or tripping over his feet when carrying a tray. 

After two weeks, Lestrade found himself listening more attentively to meetings, while his body maintained the proper position out of habit.

“Your technique is improving,” Jasper said on a Thursday afternoon, while Lestrade demonstrated his newly won expertise at pulling out chairs. “Now, if you could manage to improve your attitude as well, you could be allowed to attend muster.”

“What exactly is wrong with my attitude?” Lestrade pushed his chair back into place at the table with more force than the job strictly required.

Jasper raised an eyebrow. 

“I mean, it would be helpful to know,” Lestrade said with measured patience. 

“You learn by rote, as if the rules are a mystery to be solved, rather than a belief system to be taken to heart. What did you do before you came here?”

Lestrade’s grip tightened on the chair back. “That’s not your business.”

“Whatever it was, you must forget it.” Jasper placed his hand on Lestrade’s arm. “Our work will be easier if you do.”  
\--

“The area’s already unstable. A gentle nudge is all it will take to alter the balance of power.”

“So you assured us last year at this time, to the Empire’s detriment. A strong incursion is necessary.”

From his station kneeling at Lord Mycroft’s side, Lestrade listened attentively, trying to fit voices to names without sneaking a glance. He’d grown adept at observing interactions at the conference table without stretching the definition of proper behaviour too noticeably. 

“The action Lady Price is suggesting sends an unmistakable message.”

“My dear Lord Epstein, an atom bomb sent an unmistakable message, and yet we’ve developed methods that have taken us beyond the need for them.”

“My Lords and Ladies.” Mycroft’s even tone created an immediate silence, as if he’d conjured out of the air a worthy atmosphere in which to offer his opinion. “Our economic interests in the area depend on two commercial shipping routes. Both would be disrupted for months by a military strike of a size needed to make an appropriate show of force. Conversely, the targeted elimination of the magistrate’s palace would deplete the magistrate’s resources without creating a disgruntled populace who may later be resistant to foreign rule.”

Lord Epstein frowned, Lady MacGowan nodded, and the debate continued at a calmer pace, steered neatly by Lord Mycroft’s insinuations. When the ministers had filed out, Lord Mycroft settled back in his chair. He rested a hand at the back of Lestrade’s neck, above his collar—a habit he’d acquired to signal the end of a day’s audiences. Lestrade had come to use the touch as an anchor to draw him back from the state of near-meditation in which he could attend and listen for hours. 

When Lord Mycroft removed his hand, Lestrade stood and began setting the room to rights. He gathered the discarded tea things onto a tray, noting the position of each of the guests whose names he’d figured out during the discussion. “Sir?”

“Hm.” Lord Mycroft looked up from the papers he’d been reading at the head of the table.

“The map you were looking at this morning showed three trade routes supplying the region.”

“You must be mistaken,” Lord Mycroft said slowly. “No third route appears on any map these ministers saw.”

“I... Yes, sir.” Lestrade went back to his work, but paused after Lord Mycroft cleared his throat. When he looked back, Lord Mycroft was watching him.

“Information is only a building block, Gregory. Connections, inference, probability—these are my stock in trade.”

Lestrade ventured closer and rested his hip against the table. “Fewer civilians will be killed if they target the palace, won’t they, sir?”

“I have no compunction against killing for the good of the Empire,” Lord Mycroft said sharply. He smoothed a hand over the paper he’d been reading. “But we have enemies enough without creating new ones. If there’s a chance of winning the loyalty of new allies, we’d be fools not to try, wouldn’t we?”

Lestrade found he couldn’t look away from Lord Mycroft. “Yes, sir,” he said. 

Lord Mycroft returned his attention to his work. “Bring the top stack of papers from my desk. And a brandy.”

“Bit early in the day for brandy.” Lestrade pushed himself off the table, then froze as Lord Mycroft looked up at him. He wasn’t having a friendly chat with a colleague. He wasn’t Lord Mycroft’s equal. He bowed his head quickly. “Sorry, sir. No, I didn’t—I’ll get them, sir.” He sped toward the sideboard.

“Gregory.”

Lestrade stopped. “Yes, sir?” He clasped his hands in front of him and braced for a reprimand.

“Just the papers.”  
\--

Lestrade stood in the middle of the workroom, listening hard. Though he’d hated the blindfold at first, he’d improved greatly in tracking Jasper’s movements at all times, even in the echoing vastness of the workroom. He turned the bouncy rubber ball over in his hands, learning the weight of it—Jasper had given him a smaller one today, more difficult. 

“To me,” Jasper said.

Lestrade tossed the ball towards the sound of Jasper’s voice, and heard it caught.

“Here.”

Lestrade held out his hands to receive the ball, confident that Jasper would send it right to him. When the ball came, he caught and held it, listening for the next command.

“Good.” Jasper placed a hand on Lestrade’s shoulder—he’d been closer than Lestrade thought. “You adapt well. I see why the master wants you. Remember, not everyone will. Your position is an enviable one.”

“Is it.”

Jasper let go. His voice moved away. “The station of personal slave is the most honoured position any slave can hope to achieve. Turn to your right. To me.”

Lestrade turned to his right and threw the ball to where he thought Jasper might be. It bounced once before it was caught. “A butler runs the whole house. An agent can live independently, conduct his master’s business. Where’s the honour in being glorified arm candy and a body to warm the master’s bed?” Lestrade asked.

“Here.”

The ball caught Lestrade in the side, and he fumbled for a moment before getting a firm grip.

“Emperors used to be buried with their personal slaves,” Jasper said from somewhere behind Lestrade. “Do you know why?”

“Because they might need a slave in the afterlife?” He tossed the ball again, and heard Jasper catch it.

“No. Three steps forward, turn left. Because they knew too many secrets. The position of trust they occupied was so enormous that no Emperor dared let the confidant of his predecessor live. The personal slave is an extension of the master. He sees what his master sees, hears what his master hears. ”

Lestrade heard the throw coming, and held out his hands just in time to catch it. He held it to his chest. “Did you serve Lord Mycroft?”

“I? No. You are nearly too old to do so, and I would be entirely unsuitable. Turn. To me, go.”

Lestrade turned slowly, listening for Jasper. “But he trusts you.”

“I’ve known him from a boy. I served his father.”

Lestrade’s toss sent the ball bouncing into empty space. He heard it roll to a stop against the far wall. “You served... You served Lord Holmes?”

“Yes.” Jasper made no move to pick up the ball. 

A picture came to Lestrade of the late Lord Holmes, one he must have seen in a history book or on the news: the man’s regal bearing as he stood next to the Empress before a line of foreign dignitaries, his pale eyes sharp even in a black-and-white photo. “I can’t imagine serving a man like that. He always seemed so cold.”

“He wasn’t.” Jasper moved then, rapidly, and Lestrade felt the heat of him nearby. “I stood with him before kings and emperors. I listed to his strategies for forging peace in the west. I held his hand as he bled out his life. You are unobservant indeed if you can’t discover why a personal slave is the most honoured among his company.”

“I didn’t mean to offend.” Lestrade imagined Jasper shadowing the imposing figure of Lord Holmes through the course of world events. He could well believe Jasper had done the Empire proud. “That must have been... He was a great man.”

“As are his sons.” Jasper moved away. “Here,” he said, and passed the ball with an easy toss. “Come on, Gregory. Again.”  
\--

Lestrade knelt next to Lord Mycroft’s chair as his master made notes on his latest audience. Something about the guest tugged at Lestrade’s mind. He flexed his fingers against his thigh as he turned pieces of the conversation over in his memory, looking for clues.

Anthea bustled in bearing a stack of the mornings’ correspondence. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“Yes, Anthea. Bring me the contract from Lord Hennings to sign. And we’re in need of some more tea.”

“Sir?” Lestrade broke in.

Anthea stopped at the door, and Lord Mycroft looked down at him sharply. “Yes, Gregory?”

“He—Lord Hennings said his family came from a long lineage of property owners,” Lestrade said slowly. “He spoke as if he wanted you to think he had plenty of money.”

“Yes?” Lord Mycroft prompted. 

“His personal slave. She’s on loan from his cousin. Why would he need to borrow a slave if he could afford his own?”

Lord Mycroft looked up at Anthea, then back at Lestrade. “How do you know she’s on loan?”

“She doesn’t move well with him—she’s always looking for when he’ll stop walking, or when he’ll sit, like she hasn’t had time to learn his habits. Could just mean she’s green, but she’s worlds better than I am for serving at table and dancing and anything that doesn’t involve working around him.” Lestrade realized his attention had drifted up, and he was looking at his master as he spoke. As Lord Mycroft wasn’t protesting, he held his gaze steady. “Also, we got to talking at breakfast. She mentioned her master, and she didn’t mean Lord Hennings.”

Mycroft levelled a long look at Lestrade. “Anthea, please have the legal department look into Lord Hennings’ finances. The contract can wait another day.”  
\--

For at least an hour of each afternoon, Lestrade sat at one of the massive oak tables in the formal library, poring over texts in which Jasper had marked relevant passages: a detailed lineage of the Holmes family, a primer on slave etiquette variations between major world powers, a graphic manual of traditional punishments.

“I don’t need to learn this,” Lestrade said on a Friday afternoon. He pushed an oversized book back across the table. 

Jasper didn’t look up from the text he was preparing with his elaborate system of sticky notes. “You are already an expert?”

Lestrade looked down at the book: _Compleat Techniques for Slaves’ Sexual Performance_. He pushed it farther way. “I don’t need it.”

Jasper’s eyes flicked between Lestrade and the book, and held on Lestrade. “I see.” He plucked the book from the table and set it in a pile to his right. “Here.” He handed Lestrade _A Curious Lack: anti-slave sentiment in Malta_. 

Lestrade flipped it open to the marked page and resolutely did not look at the book he’d discarded.  
\--

“What do you think of Lord Dixon?” Lord Mycroft asked during a break in the morning audiences. 

Lestrade paused in his clearing of the tea things. He re-arranged the cups on the tray as he mulled over how to best present his opinion. “There’s something about his slave, sir.”

“Yes?” Lord Mycroft prompted. 

“Not well treated, I’d say, sir.”

“You noticed it, too?” Lord Mycroft came to stand at the head of the table.

“Bruises, just under her sleeves,” Lestrade said. And the way she’d held her body angled away from him when they moved. And the way her eyes darted toward her master at every loud noise. He remembered the slave he’d been questioning years ago, the day he first met Sherlock Holmes, who’d shielded her bruises from him, as if she’d been ashamed to bear them. What had her name been? Aggie? Hannah? He forced his hands back into motion, fitting the cream and sugar onto the tray as he replied. “He doesn’t want to be obvious about it.”

“No. Awfully gauche to damage one’s own property so obviously. He wouldn’t want to look ill-bred, not with that family history.” Lord Mycroft traced a finger over the chair back. “Ah yes, about that. Have Jasper show you the articles about their cousin’s trial for sedition. Intriguing story, that.”

“Sounds it, sir,” Lestrade said. Each reference his master suggested he look up had led to fascinating new insights about the work Lord Mycroft did. “I’ll ask him.”

“How have you found Jasper’s instruction?”

“Illuminating, sir.” When Lestrade looked back at his first miserable weeks at the estate, the perspective he’d gained from his ongoing education left him flinching at his old behaviour. “Thank you for arranging it.” 

“I have noticed an improved... confidence in your abilities.”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir.”

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft’s tone made Lestrade stop fiddling with the tea tray. “I’m attending a function at the end of the week in the city. It would be convenient to have a personal attendant. Anthea’s been filling in for such things in recent days, but perhaps now that you’ve received some additional education, if your other duties don’t prevent it, I wondered if you might feel up to going.”

Lestrade bowed his head to hide a smile. “As you please, sir.”

“Yes. Well. Good.”

The door swung open, and Anthea bustled in with a bulging file folder in one hand and her phone in the other. “Sir, did you want to place that call now, or hold it until after lunch?”

“Thank you, Anthea. I’ll take it now.”  
\--

Lestrade stumbled against one of the columns in the personal slaves’ lounge for the third time. He loosed his grip on Sally and shook his head. “It’s hopeless.”

“Stop that. You’ve got a fine sense of rhythm—that’s the difficult part.” Sally corrected his hand placement and stood at the ready. “Now if you could just not go about it like you’re charging into battle-- ”

“Oi! I’m doing my best!”

“Then do it. One two three.” Sally moved, and Lestrade stumbled along in her wake. “Look at me, not at the floor. You’re allowed to look at your master while you’re dancing.” His shoe knocked against her ankle, and they shuffled to a halt. Before she could point out his mistake, Lestrade shook his head. 

“Again?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ll get it.” He set his jaw against the building frustration and tried again. 

He moved with each beat as Sally counted it, concentrating on the tempo instead of on putting his feet in exactly the right place. 

“That’s it. Just relax and follow my lead. The pressure from my hand will tell you when we’re turning, see?”

Gradually, as they moved across the open floor, more of his steps went in the correct direction. By the time they’d made their way around the floor, he’d managed to move in an approximately correct pattern, and avoided any more run-ins with Sally’s feet.

“There.” Sally released her grip on his hand and perched on one of the room’s high-backed chairs. “That’s getting decent. A bit more practice, and Lord Mycroft won’t be ashamed to be seen with you.”

“Thanks. Very inspiring.” He flopped onto a couch across from her. “How’d you get so good?”

“Learned when I was a kid. Part of the curriculum.” 

“Oh. So, were you born--?”

“Not exactly.” She picked at an invisible imperfection on the upholstery. “My whole family was brought under after the Exmoor Riots in ’82. My mother was one of the demonstrators they caught.”

“I’m sorry.” He remembered the event only vaguely: one minor instance of sedition in a turbulent time.

“Don’t be.” Sally shook her head. “She stood against the Empire, knowing what would happen. The Empress’s justice was served.”

“Long may it be so,” Lestrade intoned automatically. “Well, thanks for your help with this. I owe you a favour.” He pushed to his feet.

Sally unfolded gracefully from her chair. “Just remember your friends when you take over Jasper’s job.”

“Jasper? Oh no, I won’t—“

“Of course you will. Highest ranking personal slave. It’s only proper.”

“Lord Mycroft’s never said anything about that,” Lestrade protested.

“Should he need to spell it out?” She cupped her chin in her hand, pretending to think. “Although if you mess up spectacularly enough tomorrow night, he might reconsider.”

“Shut it, you.”

“I mean, if you don’t want the job—“

“Yes, yes.” He hadn’t anticipated the painful twist he felt in his chest when he thought about someone else attending Lord Mycroft. He held out his hand to Sally. “Come on. Only more practice will save the honour of the house.”  
\--

The drive from the estate into London had only served to sharpen Lestrade’s anxiety. Lord Mycroft sat beside him, the very image of a self-possessed British Lord. Though Lestrade wore a simpler version of his master’s black formalwear, the outfit hadn’t imparted any of the easy confidence Lord Mycroft displayed. 

Lestrade gripped the leather seat of the town car tightly as he watched a picture-perfect London evening rush by. There was Embankment—never thought he’d miss the Tube. And the Cafe Nero where the pretty barista had always been ready with his extra-large black coffee within thirty seconds of his crossing the threshold. Birdcage Walk, where he might stroll during lunch to clear his head. His old life, the one he’d never have back, tugged at him from every street that rolled by the window.

He turned away. Thinking of his past would do him no good tonight. He replayed Jasper’s instructions in his head: _“ Don’t answer any questions unless Lord Mycroft gives you leave. Don’t smile. Don’t eat or drink anything Lord Mycroft doesn’t order you to. Keep track of him in the room—keep up your awareness of him, like we’ve practised. And have a good time.”_ Simple enough. 

Lestrade chanced a look at his master; Lord Mycroft was already watching him. He folded his hand over Lestrade’s where it rested on the seat between them, and then turned his attention to the window.

Inside the Embassy, the ballroom glittered with bejewelled ladies and bright lights. Lestrade handed their coats off to a liveried servant, then hurried to follow his master through the throng. The guests made way for Lord Mycroft as he walked; Lestrade had to move quickly to follow his master before the crowd closed around them. 

Lord Mycroft greeted other Lords and Ladies by name. Observing the ebb and flow of the assemblage, Lestrade noticed a steady stream of guests seeking his master’s attention. Slaves trailed behind their masters like collared shadows. Lord Mycroft exchanged a few words of business here or there—a mention of trade regulations for the Brazilian Empire, a congratulations on Captain Lennox’s promotion. Lestrade didn’t dare raise his eyes to put faces with names, but he noted a few guests to ask Anthea about later. 

As they ventured further into the ballroom, the crowd pressed tighter around them. Lestrade caught an elbow in the ribs and a furious glare from one slave. Another jerked away as if burned when Lestrade bumped into her. Just when the crush became unbearable, Lord Mycroft stepped deftly through an opening in the host of revellers and raised his hand to a woman in a long, sleek dress descending the grand staircase. 

“Ah, Valentina. What a lovely party.”

“I’m so glad you accepted the invitation, Mycroft dear.” The woman extended her hand, and Lord Mycroft pressed a kiss to it.

“My pleasure. Your family is well?”

“As well as can be expected.” She inclined her head. “Kind of you to ask.” 

“Well, best of luck to them.” Lord Mycroft walked on, and Lestrade followed. To his surprise, Lord Mycroft lowered his voice below the buzz of the crowd. “That’s the Ambassador, Gregory. Her two oldest sons are under house arrest in Edinburgh after an attempt to assassinate a prominent general back home. We keep them safely out of the way in exchange for certain favourable trade arrangements.”

Lestrade glanced back at the staircase, where the Ambassador was chatting with a small circle of Lords and Ladies. “Is that why we’re here, sir? To check up on her?”

“We are here to be seen, Gregory. Follow.” Lord Mycroft plunged into the crowd again. 

Lestrade pursued him until they reached the far end of the ballroom. A string quartet played on a low dais at the edge of the dance floor. All the musicians wore collars. The gentle strains of a waltz filled the ballroom. When Lestrade’s attention drifted back to his master, he found Lord Mycroft’s hand outstretched. Lestrade gave his hand immediately, and followed Lord Mycroft onto the floor.

Lord Mycroft placed his hand against Lestrade’s back, and in the next instant, they were off. The concentration it took to keep his feet moving in time and relatively in the correct direction left Lestrade no room for other worries at first. Lord Mycroft squeezed Lestrade’s fingers, and Lestrade remembered Sally’s advice to relax and follow. When he let his direction be guided by Lord Mycroft’s hand, the dance became much easier. 

He chanced a look out past Lord Mycroft’s shoulder to see many faces turned towards the dance floor. He quickly returned his attention to his master. 

“Breathe, Gregory. You’re doing fine.” Lord Mycroft turned them around the floor so that Lestrade faced the wall rather than the crowd.

“I don’t know how you stand it, sir, being under all the scrutiny.”

“I’ve had many years to inure myself to the necessity. Besides, tonight they’re not looking at me. They’re looking at you.”

The orchestra held out the last note of the song, and Lord Mycroft pulled them to a graceful stop at the edge of the dance floor. “Would you like a drink?”

“Desperately.” After a pause, Lestrade remembered himself, and nodded sharply. This wasn’t a date, nor a case. He was a slave, here for his master’s pleasure. “Brandy, sir?”

“Yes.” Mycroft nodded crisply, and his attention darted away to fix on someone else—someone important, no doubt.

Lestrade fell into the queue at the bar behind a slave wearing a collar of finely-woven gold braid. He observed how she ordered (“Pisco for my lady, and also a martini”), how she interacted with the bartender (no extraneous words, even polite ones; he made a note to ask Jasper about the protocol there), and what she did with the drink that was presumably for her (turned away from the bar, took a luxuriant sip). She saw Lestrade watching, and narrowed her eyes at him. He offered a friendly smile, which she didn’t return. Right, no smiling.

“Boy,” the bartender called.

Lestrade’s attention snapped to the man—probably ten years his junior, but un-collared. A servant rather than a slave, and perfectly within his rights to call Lestrade whatever he wanted. Lestrade dropped his eyes in deference. “A brandy for my Lord, and a whiskey, double.”

The barkeep turned to his work. Lestrade chanced a look down the bar. A tall woman in a sleek red leather collar raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re not what I expected from Lord Mycroft.”

“What did you expect?” he asked.

“Someone entirely proper and mind-numbingly forgettable.” She sidled closer and leaned against the bar. A single piece of her auburn hair had escaped from her neatly pinned braid to frame her face. “He’s always been fond of avoiding attention, your master.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re closer to him that I am.” She angled her body toward Lestrade and raised one elegant eyebrow. “You don’t have a theory?”

“I’m Lestrade.” He wasn’t certain whether shaking hands was appropriate, so he didn’t offer. 

“Here’s a tip, _Lestrade_.” She brought her mouth very close to his ear. “Don’t give away information. You don’t have much to bargain with, otherwise.” She picked up two drinks—something pink and bubbly in elegant flutes. “Nice meeting you.”

“I’d like your name in exchange,” he called. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “It’s Kate. Now run along to your master before you give away too much.”

“Boy,” the bartender snapped. “Drinks.”

Grateful that etiquette didn’t require him to thank the man, Lestrade picked up both glasses. He returned to his place at his master’s side. At a suitable break in conversation, Lestrade handed over the brandy. Lord Mycroft turned from his companions to stand next to Lestrade. With their backs against one of the ballroom’s massive pillars, they were free to observe the crowd. 

“You’re a popular fellow,” Lord Mycroft said softly. 

“Sir?”

Lord Mycroft nodded toward the bar. “They’re all angling to have a look at you and report back to their masters. Seems one caught your eye.”

“Oh, no, sir. She’s... not really my type.”

“Mm. Your ex-wife was a blonde.”

“Sir, I’m not...” Lestrade gave only a moment’s thought to how, exactly, Lord Mycroft knew so much about his ex-wife, but the bulk of his attention was wrapped up in the sharp discomfort he felt when he realized what his behaviour must have looked like to his master. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yes.” The brandy swirled in Lord Mycroft’s glass, deep gold in the sparkling light of the chandeliers.

Lestrade drained half his drink in one go. “Anyway, I wouldn’t, sir. I know who I belong to.”

“ _To whom_ , Gregory. You must know how common it is for slaves to carry on dalliances among others of their number. Even under my own roof, such things do occur.”

“Sir, if you know...” His words dried up as he realized his foolishness. There was little Lord Mycroft didn’t know. “Since my ex-wife, sir. Fidelity is very important to me. Loyalty.”

“Having had their lives and choices sold, you can hardly blame slaves for seeking to steal back some measure of autonomy.”

Lestrade’s eyes cut sideways, and Lord Mycroft met his gaze. “I knew what I was taking on when I entered into this contract, sir.”

“You make it sound so grim.”

“Sir, there’s not another master in this room _to whom_ I would rather belong.”

Lord Mycroft’s eyes widened slightly. He set down his empty glass deftly on the tray of a passing waiter. “I’ve finished my business here.”

“I’ll get the coats.”

On their way through the front hall, Lord Hayles, in a tuxedo straining at the seams, came puffing up to them. “Mycroft, a quick word?”

“Of course, Anthony.” 

Lestrade stepped back, fading into the shadows by the doorway to give them privacy. 

The footman holding the front door wore a slim metal collar, just visible under his starched shirt. He nodded to Lestrade, then tilted his head toward Lord Mycroft. “Looks a bit tense, your master.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Overwork. Practically a requirement with Lords like him.” The footman leaned forward. “Get him out of the office and into the bedroom. That’ll get him sorted. At least, if you’re any good on your knees. And from the way he looks at you, I’m guessing that’s where he likes you.”

“Yes, thanks for the advice,” Lestrade said stiffly. He looked to his master, but Lord Mycroft remained deep in conversation.

“Didn’t mean anything by it, mate.” The footman shrugged. “Only that it goes easier for us if the masters get a bit of relief when they need it. Just being friendly.”

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft walked past, and Lestrade fell into step. 

In the car, Lestrade kept his eyes resolutely averted from the sight of London. His work lay not out there, but beside him, on the warm leather seat. 

Lord Mycroft sat watching him, perfectly at ease in his fine clothes. “Did you enjoy the party?”

“It’s not every day I visit an Embassy.” Truth to tell, he’d be content to wait a long while before visiting again.

“Nor I. I prefer to let the world come to me.” Lord Mycroft smoothed a hand down the front of his jacket. “You did well tonight.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“The rumours about your dancing were vicious lies.”

Lestrade felt his expression morph into an unexpected smile.

Lord Mycroft leaned forward. Lestrade closed his eyes. He could feel the heat of Lord Mycroft’s body. Only an inch of empty space separated them. Lestrade would let it happen, now. He knew full well what he’d signed up for when he stood in Lord Mycroft’s library and said, “I accept.” He marshalled his body into stillness and waited. 

Nothing happened. When Lestrade opened his eyes, Lord Mycroft had his legs crossed primly, and was looking out at the darkened motorway speeding by. He’d put as much distance between them as the car allowed.

“I’d be interested to hear your observations about the other guests,” he said.  
\--

When Lestrade came down to the servants’ kitchen in the morning, he found Jasper talking with Mrs. Hudson in hushed tones. The conversation died as soon as he crossed the threshold.

“Here, love.” Mrs. Hudson handed Lestrade a mug of black coffee and disappeared into the recesses of the kitchen.

Lestrade was left alone with Jasper, who held a cup of tea in both hands, but made no move to drink. “The outing went well?”Jasper asked.

“Well enough,” Lestrade offered cautiously.

“You spent the night in your own quarters.”

Lestrade retreated to his table by the window. Jasper followed and sat silently, watching him stare at his coffee. Lestrade pressed his palms to his eyes, which he suspected were puffy and bloodshot from a night of staring at the ceiling in his room, alone. Contemplating his existing clues had got him nowhere. Perhaps the time had come to question the witnesses. 

He took a fortifying gulp of his coffee and leaned his elbows of the table. “What have Lord Mycroft’s other personal slaves been like? He said that Anthea’s filled in on occasion.”

“Anthea serves as an escort when appropriate,” Jasper said quickly. “She doesn’t perform all the duties of a personal slave.”

“But he has had other personal slaves,” Lestrade prompted.

“Of course.”

“Well?”

Jasper regarded Lestrade, and at last took a sip of his tea. “I’ve been with the Holmes family my entire adult life. I want nothing more than to see him well-matched.”

Lestrade considered that statement. “And he hasn’t been?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Lestrade tried Sally next. 

“A year at the most, but usually not that long,” she told him on her way to the laundry. “None of them last, much as they try. He’s a hard man to like, Lord Holmes.”

“I’ve not found that,” Lestrade said.

“Ha bloody ha,” Sally said over her shoulder. “All slaves think they want to serve a master with that much power. Few of them remember that there’s a man behind that power, and that’s who they have to please.”

He couldn’t track down Anthea, so he sent her an e-mail. 

A reply pinged onto his screen almost immediately: _What do you want to hear? A reference? I serve him because I believe in him. He’s done wonderful things for the Empire, and demands little enough for himself. He’s given me chances no one else would. He’s secure enough in his power that he doesn’t want to destroy everyone who shows a little backbone. I told you before that I’ve never regretted my choice to serve him. I don’t think you will, either._

After taking a deep breath, Lestrade sent a reply: _Can I have your help with some logistics?_  
\--

Lestrade startled awake at the sound of an opening door. His sleepy brain took several seconds to orient itself to his surroundings: face down on an enormous bed much softer than the one in his quarters. Lord Mycroft’s bed. Lord Mycroft’s bedroom. He looked back over his shoulder to see Lord Mycroft himself standing in the doorway, lips slightly parted, taking in the sight of a naked slave looking back at him. 

Lestrade knew what he had to do. He dropped his eyes and rose to his knees. “Good evening, sir.”

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft’s voice sounded strained.

Lestrade raised his eyes to meet his master’s, and held them. “Come in, then, sir.”

Lord Mycroft took a step forward and closed the door behind him.

“I wanted to apologize for last night, sir.”

“There’s no apology necessary.” Lord Mycroft drew himself up stiffly, as if this were a formal audience. “Your performance was exemplary.”

“Sir, I believe I gave the wrong impression.” Lestrade unfolded from the bed and stood. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me—“

“Gregory.”

“--and I want to make certain I’m living up to your expectations.”

“I told you at the very first that I have no interest in encroaching where I’m not wanted.”

“So you said. I’ve spoken to the others. Is it true that you don’t call on any of the personal slaves here? You own a dozen. Surely you must be tempted, my lord?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“What about me?” Lestrade approached Lord Mycroft, step by careful step. “Since I’ve come here, you’ve hardly asked me for anything. Am I a disappointment? Do you regret taking me on, sir?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lord Mycroft brushed past Lestrade on his way to the sideboard, where he splashed brandy into a glass. 

“I’m not an idiot, sir. I can see you’re interested.”

“Yes, well.” Lord Mycroft retreat to the fireplace to stand before an imposing armchair. “Interest does not always—“

“Have you thought about it, at least?” Lestrade circled around by the crackling fireplace. Heat lapped at his naked skin and pushed him closer. “Have you imagined what I could do for you?”

“Yes.” Lord Mycroft tossed back a generous swallow of brandy and fixed his gaze somewhere off to the right. “It’s not that I’m not—“

“I’ve thought about it too, sir,” Lestrade said as he prowled closer.

“Gregory. We should discuss—Ah!”

Lestrade pressed his hand to the front of his master’s impeccably tailored trousers. Hearing no protest, he curled his fingers around the hot outline of Lord Mycroft’s erection. “I can do something about this.”

“You needn’t—“

“Sir?”

Lestrade waited until Lord Mycroft turned his head slowly, by degrees, to look at him.

“May I?”

“Yes,” came the near-silent exhalation. “Yes.”

At Lestrade’s hand on his shoulder, Lord Mycroft sat abruptly at the edge of the arm chair. 

Lestrade knelt between his master’s knees and dragged his knuckles up and down the bulge in Lord Mycroft’s trousers. Lord Mycroft gripped the arms of the chair. He had his eyes closed, and took even, if shuddering, breaths through his parted lips. Even when they’d been pressed together on the dance floor, he’d never had so clear a view. 

“My lord?”

Lord Mycroft’s eyes fluttered open. 

“Is this alright?” Lestrade asked.

“Go ahead.”

Conscious of his master’s eyes on him, Lestrade reached for the fastening on Lord Mycroft’s trousers. Each motion—the button sliding free of its hole, the teeth of the zip spreading apart, the slow reveal of the silken fabric inside—seemed intimate in a mundane way, like a lazy kiss on a Sunday morning. Perhaps it could be like that between them: easy. 

Now that Lestrade had begun, the process seemed incredibly simple. One step, then the next, until the thing was done. The pants required a bit of manoeuvring, but at last Lestrade could lift Lord Mycroft’s thick cock away from the restraining fabric, and hold it bare in his hand. He liked the look of it: firm and imposing, like the man himself. Lestrade’s dick gave an interested twitch; he spared his other hand to give it a firm tug or two, a promise of more to come. 

It had been a long while since he’d done this, but the technique hadn’t changed. And Lord Mycroft, flushed from neck to ears and gulping in air like a drowning man, made a very appealing subject for practice. Just holding him, Lestrade felt more powerful than he had in weeks—here was something he could do, some way he could share Lord Mycroft’s burden. He bent forward and licked across the slit, tasting salt and clean skin.

Lord Mycroft’s eyes drifted shut again. When Lestrade closed his lips around the head, Lord Mycroft’s grip on the chair’s arms left deep indentations in the upholstery. Applying suction made Lord Mycroft’s hips thrust forward shallowly: less a demand than an involuntary seeking.

Lestrade opened wide to give Lord Mycroft what he sought. He pressed forward slowly, tightening his lips around the shaft as he went. His hand slid back to cup his master’s balls, and lift them free of his pants. 

With a raspy breath, Lord Mycroft’s legs fell further apart, to the limit his tangled trousers would allow. His head tipped back, and his eyes remained resolutely closed, freeing Lestrade from the pressure of his gaze.

Lestrade pulled back long enough to breathe. His cock throbbed in his hand. He wished he could remove those troublesome clothes—see if the pink blush ran down Lord Mycroft’s neck to paint his chest, touch the long, smooth lines of that body stripped of his finery, feel the heat of his bare skin. But that wasn’t his to ask. He was meant to serve. Lestrade tightened his hand on his cock even as he slid his mouth onto Lord Mycroft, bringing his own pleasure into rhythm with his master’s.

Lord Mycroft’s hand reached out to hover near Lestrade’s face, as if he wanted to touch but didn’t dare—absurd, considering their positions. When Lestrade glanced up, he found Lord Mycroft’s eyes on him, mouth open, eyes wide. Lestrade reached up to guide Lord Mycroft’s hand onto his head without breaking his rhythm. 

His master’s hand stroked Lestrade’s short hair with each bob his head, but he didn’t grip, didn’t push Lestrade down or hold him. “Gregory. You... You’re...” Lord Mycroft’s wrecked voice, normally so controlled, tightened the knot of want in Lestrade’s belly. He was meant to be holding onto his self-control, keeping his attention on his master, on serving, just as he did during audiences. He shouldn’t lose himself in this—it was just another duty. But every little sensation--the rattle of Lord Mycroft’s ragged breathing, the scratch of the rug beneath his knees, the heat of the fire, the smooth slide of cock through the ring of his lips—stoked his arousal and wore holes in his concentration.

Lestrade breathed in through his nose and relaxed. When he bobbed his head forward, he took Lord Mycroft deeper, until his nose brushed against dark, curly hair. He reached up to grip Lord Mycroft’s hip and hold himself in place: the slide of the silk shirt felt sinful against his fingers. The picture came to him of how they must look: the master, still almost fully clothed, guiding the motions of the naked slave who knelt between his legs, shamelessly pleasuring himself as he served.

A twist of hot, confused pleasure sent Lestrade’s hips stuttering forward and his cock sliding through the tight circle of his fingers. He squeezed his eyes shut, holding fast to that image as he spilled his release. He groaned around his master’s cock, which sent Lord Mycroft’s hands clutching desperately at the chair, helpless as any other man against the will of his body.

Lord Mycroft’s hips snapped forwards and he gasped in a breath and held it. Lestrade opened wide to receive the result of his diligent labour, sucking his master through his climax. 

Lestrade drew back gently. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand before looking to his master. Lord Mycroft had slumped against the chair with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, breathing deeply. He looked delicious. Temping. Kissable, in fact.

Lestrade had already stood and leaned in when Lord Mycroft’s eyes snapped open and fixed on him. The sleepy, sated look had fled, replaced by one of sharp attention.

Lestrade straightened, took a step back, and bowed his head. “Shall I get you ready for bed, sir?”  
\--

No matter how soft and large Lord Mycrot’s bed, Lestrade felt pinned under the duvet, as trapped as if he’d been chained to the headboard. In the dark, he couldn’t gauge the passage of time except by the spiralling ascent of his panic. The pleasant glow of his release had faded rapidly as he’d climbed into bed with his master. Breaking down the last of his resistance to serving Lord Mycroft had been worryingly easy: once he’d taken the first step, he’d lost himself in the pleasure of his task. 

But now that Lestrade had opened that door, he began to see the vastness that lay beyond. Would Lord Mycroft want him often? Would he take Lestrade casually, when they were in public? Would he demand to be serviced daily? Twice daily? He could wake now and claim any part of Lestrade, and Lestrade had no basis to refuse.

Certain that his panicked breathing was in danger of waking his master, Lestrade slipped out of bed. He wrapped himself in the dressing robe Anthea had acquired for him, crept to the toilet, and eased the door shut.

At the sink, Lestrade splashed water on his face. He’d done exactly as he meant to do, but he hadn’t anticipated the painful clench of the something that had been simmering under his sternum for weeks. He’d only meant to test his resolve: to prove to himself that he’d committed fully to serving his master and conforming to his new role in the empire. 

What he hadn’t realized until he knelt before his sated master was that he’d relinquished his last excuse for dignity, and shattered the illusion that his value lay in his knowledge and intelligence rather than his body. 

He’d said with such hubris that he could never be happy as a slave, but here he was. He’d enjoyed that. He’d actually enjoyed kneeling before his master, had got off on serving the man who owned him. How sure he’d been that slavery wouldn’t change him, and Lord Mycroft had him begging like a whore within weeks. 

Dimmock and the others would love to see him now: paraded about at a party like a prized poodle, then gagging for his master’s cock. 

Lestrade slumped down against the great marble tub and dropped his head into his hands. He gulped in deep breaths, fighting back the panic that threatened to strangle him. He’d brought himself to this: he’d betrayed his old life and agreed to this one. Lord Mycroft had been his choice. He _liked_ the man. Then again, he’d been trained to like the man, hadn’t he?

The door creaked open, emitting the soft glow of the firelight. “Gregory?” Mycroft saw him—really saw him, with the penetrating gaze that took in more details in an instant of observation than Lestrade could hope to capture in an hour. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Lestrade scrubbed his hands through his hair and pushed to his feet. “Sorry, sir. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I see.” Lord Mycroft closed his eyes, and for a moment, standing in his dressing robe, he seemed to be merely a man, a regular, tired man, and not a Lord at all. 

Lestrade could serve a man like that. His judgement hadn’t been mistaken; Lord Mycroft was a man worthy of Lestrade’s loyalty. He stepped forward and bowed his head. “I’ll come back to bed.”

“There’s no need.” Lord Mycroft’s shoulder’s straightened, and his face returned to the implacable mask Lestrade had seen him use on strangers. “You’re at liberty to return to your quarters.”  
\--

Sleep had refused to come in his cold, narrow bed, so Lestrade cleaned up thoroughly and tried to make himself look like a high-ranking personal slave and not a sleep-deprived zombie for the morning audiences. When he reported to the small library outside Lord Mycroft’s office, Anthea stopped him at the door.

“For God’s sake, what happened?” she whispered. She gripped his arm with both hands. Her Blackberry was nowhere in evidence. 

“Nothing.” Lestrade looked at the open door to the office. The painful twist in his chest had returned. He’d done everything he was meant to. He’d come back this morning ready to kneel again, serve again. “I did what I thought he wanted.” 

Anthea shook him once, hard. “What did you do?”

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft appeared in the doorway. “A word?” 

Anthea released him and turned her back. Lestrade followed him inside, though each step felt like pushing through a dense London fog into the perilous unknown. His master had declined to sit, so Lestrade stood across from him, hands clasped, head bowed. 

“It’s come to my attention,” Lord Mycroft said, “that our expectations of your duties may not be entirely compatible.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Lestrade chanced a look up and found his master’s eyes fixed on the wall. He’d thought Lord Mycroft had enjoyed what they’d done, but now he looked so cold. Lestrade was put in mind of the image of the previous Lord Holmes, imperious and distant, not at all like the man who’d accepted his advances with reverent reluctance the night before. Lestrade racked his memory for any other failing his master might be addressing, but last night’s events had been the only change between them; Lord Mycroft’s disappointment could only have sprung from that.

“Don’t you think it might be best if we found you a new post?”

Lestrade stared. He knew he was staring. But his mind had frozen on the words “a new post.” They repeated endlessly in his head, crashing against any attempt to reason further.

“Gregory,” Lord Mycroft prompted sharply.

Lestrade dropped his eyes to the floor, as was proper. After last night, his master was finished with him. He hadn’t imagined he’d been so bad. Of course, Lord Mycroft had had many personal slaves. Perhaps he’d thought it novel to have a washed up Yard man at his beck and call, but had found the reality paled in comparison to the younger, more skilled slaves he could acquire. Lestrade had been so sure he’d judged correctly when first Lord Mycroft had offered him the position. It seemed that in this, Lestrade had failed entirely, from his initial judgement of Lord Mycroft’s interest to his estimation of his own abilities. It was no wonder Lord Mycroft wanted rid of him. “I’m sure you’re right, sir.”

“Good. It’s settled then.” Lord Mycroft strode to his desk and waved a dismissive hand at Lestrade. “You may go.”

Lestrade drifted out through the door and was nearly bowled over by Anthea rushing past him. He stood frozen in the library. Even if he’d been able to move, he had nowhere to go; disgraced in his old life, now rejected here, all hope of usefulness had fled.

From the office, Lestrade heard Lord Mycroft’s muffled voice. “Anthea, you’ll receive instructions for assigning Gregory a new position.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to know where you send him.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t record it in the general database, either. Handle it personally. See that I hear nothing about him.”

Lestrade found himself in the hallway without making the decision to move. He had to prepare. Wherever they sent him next, he wouldn’t fail. He’d start again, do better this time. He would find some way to serve, if he had to give up every vestige of his pride to do so.   
\--


	3. Chapter 3

Lord Charles squinted through his golden-rimmed glasses at a stack of papers on the monstrosity of a desk before him. He spent several minutes examining them before he addressed Lestrade. “Why would you say Lord Mycroft’s got rid of you?”

Lestrade took an even breath through his nose and concentrated on keeping his posture perfect. “I didn’t live up to his standards, sir. He’s accustomed to a certain level of experience.”

“I see.” Lord Charles leaned back in his chair. His smile never seemed to waver, though Lestrade felt much more disquieted by the patently false grin than he ever had from Lord Mycroft’s studied blankness. 

Lestrade had barely heard Anthea’s questions about his preferences for a new post. Anywhere away from Lord Mycroft and the reminders of the total failure of his mission would be good enough, he’d thought. Even now, facing the questions of a man who held Lestrade’s life in his hands, Lestrade didn’t think it would have made a difference; no one would compare to Lord Mycroft.

“Tell me,” Lord Charles said, “what were your duties in his house?”

“I attended him at audiences, served at some meals, and accompanied him to events, sir.”

“Excellent.” Lord Charles scrawled a note on the uppermost paper of the pile he held, then peered at Lestrade over the top of his glasses. “And you served him in bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Lestrade said softly. At least, he’d tried. Anthea had assured him that his new placement wouldn’t require that particular duty; perhaps Lord Mycroft had indicated to her that Lestrade had no aptitude for it.

Lord Charles hmmed eloquently and made another notation. “Have you read the terms of your lease?”

“No, sir,” Lestrade said. Anthea had offered, but Lestrade hadn’t seen a need; he doubted they’d be favourable to him, and he’d rather not know what concessions Lord Mycroft had had to make to get rid of him.

Lord Charles’ grin widened. “I haven’t had a personal slave in my house in years. They can be such a nuisance, always underfoot. My son keeps a valet, as have I in the past, but there are occasions where having a personal slave would assist in my business. I don’t think the conditions set forth in your lease would be a detriment to that, as long as you can be properly obedient.”

“I can be, sir.” Lestrade had resolved to prove his worth here, and so he would behave as required. “I will be.”

“I’m willing to give you a chance.” Lord Charles’ persistent smile stretched thin. “I trust you’ll try not to be as much of a disappointment this time around.”  
\--

Lestrade examined himself in the tarnished mirror that hung at the end of the tiny slaves’ dormitory. His new collar—a gaudy affair of interlocking rectangles cast in gold—hung heavily around his neck. The low cut of the footman’s livery dipped conspicuously, leaving the collar exposed.

Clarke, the valet of Lord Charles’ son, appeared behind him, tugging at the cuffs of his own uniform. “It feels a bit like fancy dress, playing the footman, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“Don’t know why Lord Charles wants to make such a production of dinner tonight.” Clarke dropped down on his narrow bed—one of three that stood in a neat row against the wall, for the house’s male slaves. He began tugging on his highly-polished shoes. “It’s only the family. Just some cousins and a local couple, not royalty and film stars like you must be used to.”

“It wasn’t like I belonged to the Empress, Clarke.” 

“Still, it’s loads more interesting than here, I’ll bet.”

“Sometimes.” Lestrade thought about the night at the Chilean Embassy, and about the ride home afterwards, when Lord Mycroft had been so close to him. “Depends on what you mean by interesting.”

“Ha, that’s the truth.” Clarke brushed a persistent smudge off his shoe. “Sometimes boring’s better.”

A heavy hand pounded on the door, and woman’s voice came through. “Hurry up, Clarky!”

“Out in two shakes!” he called. “Come on, then.”

Lestrade followed Clarke down the narrow stairs and into the formal dining room. The place had no comparison to Lord Mycroft’s banquet hall: tonight, with the table set for six, the room seemed pleasantly full. 

Agatha, the maid who’d come up to fetch them, shoved the corkscrew into Clarke’s hand. “Hurry up, man. I don’t see how Lord Gus ever gets anywhere on time, depending on you.” She looked past him to give Lestrade a wink. “Bet they don’t stand for that sort of thing where you come from. Anyway, I’ve got to get back down and give Mrs. Turner a hand. Soup will be ready straight away.” 

“Come on, help me decant all this.” Clarke grabbed a bottle from the sideboard. “I don’t want to want to see Lord Charles’ face if we’re not done with this before his guests arrive.”

Lestrade nodded sharply and set about helping with the wine while keeping one eye on the door. Until he came here, Lestrade hadn’t realized the extent to which Lord Mycroft had been his ally in situations like this: placing him in a good position to observe, arranging for breaks from the tedium of kneeling, shielding him from his mistakes in front of company. Lord Charles, by contrast, made a disapproving noise whenever Lestrade erred in his presence, though he seldom deigned to explain the nature of the mistake.

On Lestrade’s first night, he’d learned that Lord Charles had no tolerance for any inconvenience to his guests. When Lestrade had mistakenly brought Lady Cecelia Ayers a glass of chardonnay rather than Riesling, she delivered a stinging slap across his cheek. 

“Greg,” Lord Charles had said with deep disdain. “Apologize at once.”

“I’m sorry, miss,” Lestrade had said, while his face heated from more than the slap. 

He hadn’t been physically hurt, but that night he’d lain awake in his narrow bed in the slave dormitory with his hand pressed to his cheek. Since then, he’d learned to pay close attention to any action he took in Lord Charles’ presence. It seemed that without the challenge of running the Empire to occupy them, Lords and Ladies could fixate on truly trivial matters. 

As soon as the door creaked open, Lestrade and Clarke abandoned the wine and snapped to attention. Lestrade tried to attach the names he’d heard to the new faces. Lord Charles came first, deep in conversation with Lady Anne, who Lestrade took to be some kind of distant relation. Then the young master, Lord Gus, escorted in Lady Anne’s daughter, which meant that the last couple must be Lady Eva Miles and Lord Colonel Reginald Dorking. 

The last two seemed in rather subdued spirits, but Lord Charles was speaking quite animatedly, and retained his ever-present grin. That could bode well or ill for Lestrade; he’d have to simply maintain his awareness, as always, and hope for the best. 

All the attendants—Clarke, Lestrade, and the guests’ slaves--arranged themselves around the room as the Lords and Ladies found their places. Lestrade pulled out the head chair for Lord Charles and prepared himself for another interminable evening of mundane family discussion.

Conversation meandered from the weather, to the recent breaking off of an acquaintance’s engagement, to a biography of Emperor George III that Lord Charles had been reading. Lestrade found himself longing for the intricate machinations of Lord Mycroft’s audiences, which had required strict attention to follow. He found himself thinking about Lord Hennings’ contract, and wondering what Lord Mycroft had ever found out about his possibly tenuous financial situation.

“Greg.” Lord Charles’ sharp voice drew his attention. “Attend.” 

Damn. He must have missed some subtle order. Lestrade hastened to Lord Charles’ side and knelt to the left of his chair. 

“Yes, this one belonged to Lord Mycroft Holmes himself,” Lord Charles said to his guests. “He didn’t have the time to devote to training such a green slave, but I stepped in to take up the challenge.” He snapped and pointed to the floor. 

Lestrade frowned, puzzling through the possibilities of what that signal might mean, since he was already on his knees, until Lord Charles decided he hadn’t reacted fast enough. Lord Charles’ meaty hand clamped on the back of Lestrade’s neck and shoved him towards the floor. 

Lestrade’s instincts clamoured for him to fight back—throw off his attacker and punch the man who would push around a powerless subordinate. But then he recalled Lord Mycroft’s aloof manner as he informed Lestrade of his dismissal. He wouldn’t fail again. 

Lestrade submitted to having his face pushed against the worn pile of the rug. Lord Charles’ polished shoe settled on the back of Lestrade’s neck, over his collar. He didn’t press, merely rested his foot there as a reminder. From the neighbouring chair, Lady Eva drew back her feet. No one else seemed to be phased by this development.

Lestrade heard the clatter of Lord Charles picking up his flatware. “I find it’s best to be firm with them. I expect my demands to be obeyed, and they must learn that defying me will do no good.”

“I admire your enthusiasm, Charles,” said the Colonel. “Myself, I prefer to surround myself with docile creatures: ones whose natures are more pure and biddable.”

“I apologize for the disruption,” Lord Charles said. “You were saying, Lady Anne, about the operetta?”  
\--

“Are you alright?” Clarke asked that night, in the dark and silence of the slave dormitory.

“Fine.” Lestrade’s fingers looped around the gold collar. It felt too tight.

“That happens sometimes, with company. He likes to make an example.”

“He’s done that to you?” The tightness in Lestrade’s chest that had been easing since he’d left Lord Charles’s sight twisted tighter as he imagined Clarke subjected to the same treatment.

“Not exactly. He gives Lord Gus free rein with me, or near enough, and Lord Gus cares more for his own pleasure than for what others think of him. But they’re both of them very strict.”

“I suppose,” Lestrade said, though in his mind, strict came closer in meaning to the standard of clockwork efficiency in Lord Mycroft’s house rather than Lord Charles’ single-minded vigilance for a mistake that could be exploited. Lestrade reminded himself sternly that it was not his place to judge a master’s methods, no matter how far they might fall from what he’d studied.

The ancient bedsprings creaked as Clarke rolled over on his narrow bed. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to have someone on their bad side who isn’t me.”

“Cheers.”

“Sorry. You know what I mean. Someone to share the burden. Aggie’s just a maid, so she’s never around to bully. Tom never comes in from the garden if he doesn’t have to, and Mrs. Turner won’t be made sport of. I think even Lord Charles is afraid of her. Anyway, with two of us it might be better.”

Lestrade rolled over and squinted through the pitch dark of the windowless room. “So, are you a personal slave or not?”

“Oh, I’m not—Did you think I was a--? I’m a valet,” Clarke said quickly. “Lord Charles won’t let Lord Gus have a personal slave under his roof. Hence, ‘Clarke.’ Valets and ladies maids are called by last name. It’s a mark of respect, my dad always said. He was a valet. Not that personal slaves aren’t respectable.”

“I know what you mean,” Lestrade said. The noble calling Jasper had described to him seemed to bear little resemblance to his role in this house, however. “I just don’t see why Lord Charles would take me on.”

“Obvious, isn’t it? You belong to Lord Mycroft. It’s like eating off a plate that belonged to the Pope.”

“Wonderful,” Lestrade snorted.

“I guess that doesn’t sound too appealing.” The bed spring squeaked again as Clarke settled onto his back. “It’s not so bad here. It’s not.”  
\--

With so few slaves in the house, Lestrade pitched in each morning with communal chores—the washing up from dinner, cleaning around the house, and even some work with Tom in the yard—while the Lords slept in. The routine hardly had the industrious energy of Lord Mycroft’s house; instead, the slaves went about their duties quickly, with a minimum of conversation, as if perpetually bracing for a blow.

After lunch, Lestrade would attend Lord Charles in his study. Often, that meant kneeling by the desk as Lord Charles made phone calls and handled correspondence. Occasionally, he’d have Lestrade stand at attention in the middle of the room, and from time to time he’d look up with his perpetual smile and stare at Lestrade for a few moments before going back to work. 

On Tuesday, Lestrade arrived a few minutes earlier than usual, in time to see Lord Charles adjusting the ostentatiously-placed landscape painting on the east wall of the study, while holding a packet of creased and folded letters under his arm. 

Lestrade quickly dropped his eyes and pretended to be intently studying the floor. He’d worked enough robbery cases in the houses of the rich to know a likely spot for a safe or other hidey-hole, but he didn’t think Lord Charles was the type to trust any slave—even a supposedly valuable personal slave—with his secrets, whatever those were. 

When Lord Charles returned to his desk and saw Lestrade standing at the door, he waved a negligent hand in his direction. “Ah, Greg. We’ll be having company this afternoon. I trust you can behave accordingly.”

“Yes, sir,” Lestrade said as pleasantly as he could. In truth, the afternoon was likely to be unpleasant whether or not Lord Charles entertained. Much of good behaviour here, he’d found, meant endurance. 

This time, Lestrade tried to settle himself into that calm state he’d achieved when he knelt beside Lord Mycroft hour after hour, but his concentration waxed and waned as Lord Charles made small talk with his guest—a minor southern Lord, Dixon by name. Perhaps it was the pungent cigar smoke that wreathed the sitting area, or perhaps it was the nasal inflection of Lord Charles’ voice; whatever the reason, a condition of relaxed attention continued to escape Lestrade. 

When at last Lestrade gave up and began to attune himself to Lord Charles’ conversation, he made certain not to give any outward sign, lest Lord Charles accuse him of overstepping his bounds. 

“You see, a man in my business must make certain arrangements to ensure my own security,” Lord Charles was saying. 

“Lord Charles, I know you appreciate the delicate nature of my situation.” Lord Dixon folded his hands in his lap. “My access to the funds—“

“Is not my concern. I’m a simple businessman. However, if I had your assurance that the balance would be paid in full--”

“Oh yes, yes, I—“

“I’m not finished.” Lord Charles waited a moment, to be certain Lord Dixon was cowed, before continuing. “If you were to sign something to that effect, my concerns would be assuaged, and this business could be concluded.”

“Sign? Sign some sort of contract?”

“Precisely.” Lord Charles snapped his fingers. “Greg, fetch the top document from the bottom left drawer, and the ink pen in the case by the blotter.”

Lestrade rose, careful to give his legs time to sort themselves out after so long in one position, and did as he was asked. The desk was by no means as large as Lord Mycroft’s, but the papers were as neatly laid out. Lestrade tugged open the bottom left drawer, and noted that it did not contain a tin of biscuits, chocolate-dipped shortbreads or otherwise. He lifted the top document from the stack, and brought it back to present to Lord Charles.

“I’m sure you can understand,” Lord Dixon was saying, “why I’d be reluctant to affix my name to a document that makes mention of the circumstances surrounding—“

“Of course, of course. Nothing like that. Give it here, boy.” Lord Charles plucked the document out of Lestrade’s hands and turned back to his guest. “You see, it’s only that—Greg. What is this?”

“The document you asked for, sir.” Lestrade replayed Lord Charles’ instructions in his mind; he couldn’t have bollixed up something so simple.

“I asked you to bring the contract from the bottom right drawer. Is that what you brought me?”

“Sir, I thought—“

“You thought?” Lord Charles laughed. “Don’t. This is not the right document. Come here.”

Lestrade let his eyes slide closed for a moment, but not so long that Lord Charles would count it an insult; he only needed a moment to remind himself that his duty was obedience. He forced his eyes open and stepped to Lord Charles’ side, head bowed. 

“Put your hands on the table. Right there. Spread your legs. Wider. Face forward.” Lord Charles’ tapped Lestrade’s chin to finish positioning him over the low table before the sofa where Lord Dixon sat.

Lestrade fixed his eyes on the far wall, but he couldn’t help seeing the rising alarm on Lord Dixon’s face in his peripheral vision. He clenched his jaw tight and remembered to breathe. 

A moment later, a hand smacked against Lestrade’s clothed arse. Lestrade felt the urge to fight rise up inside him, and he squashed it ruthlessly. This was nothing, he reminded himself, to the humiliation of failing Lord Mycroft. This was only physical punishment, and that Lestrade could withstand.

Lord Charles braced a hand against the small of Lestrade’s back and brought his hand down again; the resulting crack sounded obscenely loud in the silent study. Lord Charles hit him again and again, picking up speed with each blow. Lestrade closed his eyes against the sight of Lord Dixon’s dismay, but he could feel the flush creeping up his chest and across his face as Lord Charles punished him. He wanted to bow his head and hide his face, but he’d been ordered to stay still, and he would do so.

The blows stopped abruptly. Only then did Lestrade start to feel the ache the cumulative blows had built. He sucked in air through gritted teeth, determined not to give Lord Charles the satisfaction of a larger reaction.

“Stay there.” Lord Charles settled himself on the chair beside the table, where he had an excellent view of Lestrade holding himself rigid. “Sorry for the interruption, Lord Dixon. Do you see how motivating a little humiliation can be? Greg could have spared himself this lesson by following my instructions. I daresay he won’t make the same mistake again, will you, Greg?”

“No, sir.” Lestrade forced the words out, and curled his fingers around the far edge of the coffee table to prevent himself from moving.

“Well, what were we talking about?” Lord Charles asked.

Lord Dixon muttered, “I’ll sign the contract.”  
\--

The next morning, Lestrade stood at the counter in the dank laundry room, hemming a pair of uniform trousers. He’d spent a restless night lying face down on his hard bunk in the claustrophobic slave dormitory as the pieces of what he’d seen here sorted and re-sorted themselves in his head. He pulled the needle through thick cloth, then watched it disappear as he pushed it down again. “Clarke, what exactly does Lord Charles do?”

“What do you mean?” Clarke looked up from his ironing. “He’s a Lord. He has dinners and goes to the club. He enjoys sport shooting from time to time. What do you mean ‘what does he do?’”

“His business. Those guests that come to the office.”

“I don’t know.” Clarke’s eyes darted toward the open door, and he lowered his voice. “He doesn’t like us talking about it. Even Lord Gus gets angry to hear of it.” 

Mrs. Turner shuffled through the doorway with an empty basket balanced against her hip. “Good morning boys. Well, isn’t this a cosy little work party?” 

Tom stormed in on her heels with a pile of clothes in his hands and stomped up to Clarke. “Is my laundry done?”

“Probably not,” Clarke said. He smoothed a hand over the shirt he was ironing. “Had to get the masters’ done first, didn’t I?”

“And what are we to wear for uniforms in the meantime?” Tom dumped the pile of clothes he’d been holding onto the worktop and glared at Clarke. “Shall I explain to Lord Charles that I’m not presentable because you can’t get your chores done?”

“They’ll be done, Tommy,” Clarke soothed. “I’ll do yours next. Before dinner, promise.”

“You’d better,” Tom muttered, and stalked out as quickly as he’d come. 

“Don’t mind him,” Mrs. Turner said. She settled her basket on the floor and began folding the towels Clarke had piled up on the table. “He’s in a proper strop since Aggie’s found a new beau.”

“She never has.” Clarke set his iron aside and leaned in over the ironing board.

“It’s true! That handyman plumber fellow what’s been coming around.” Mrs. Turner seemed to have no problem gossiping and working at the same time; the pile of folded towels in her basket grew quickly. “She claims she’ll get him to propose by week’s end.”

“That’s Aggie for you. Ambitious.” Clarke raised an eyebrow at Lestrade. “See she doesn’t try for you too, Greg.”

“I’m taken.”

“True enough.” Mrs. Turner tossed the last of the towels into her basket and picked it up with both hands. “Anyway, do get those clothes of Tom’s in the wash, Clarkey. He needs something good to come his way, even if it’s just clean pants,” she said as she shuffled out.

“You finished there?” Clarke asked.

Lestrade realized he’d stopped his mending to listen to the slaves’ gossip. He liked the others—Clarke’s guileless advice, Mrs. Turner’s nosiness, even Tom’s brusque efficiency. Still, he didn’t feel like one of them. He hadn’t appreciated how attached to Lord Mycroft’s slaves he’d become in a few short months. 

As he stared at the needle in his hand, Lestrade wondered if the others back at the Holmes estate thought about him. Maybe Mrs. Hudson had mentioned him to Sally over breakfast. Possibly they’d speculated over the reason for his being sent away. Or, perhaps Anthea had told them all about Lestrade’s disgrace, and they regretted ever having anything to do with him. 

He had left quite a trail of burning bridges in his wake.

“Hello, Greg?” Clarke waved a hand. “Finished?”

“Near enough.” Lestrade set down his mostly-hemmed trousers. “You want help with the washing?”  
\--

Lestrade had just been excused from Lord Charles’ study with a pat on the head and a, “You’re becoming so delightfully docile, Greg,” when Clarke found him in the kitchen, washing his hands with the hottest water the taps would run.

“Say,” Clarke said from the doorway, “what made you ask about the family’s business?”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Curiosity’s dangerous.”

“It can be. I don’t understand, is all.” Lestrade turned off the water and reached for a towel to dry his hands. “I’m not exactly an idiot, but I’ve been here a month, and I’ve no idea what it is Lord Charles discusses in all his meetings.”

“You’re a slave, Greg,” Clarke said with an uncomfortable laugh. “You think he’s going to spill the family secrets in front of you?”

“A personal slave is meant to be completely trustworthy.” He leaned against the worktop and regarded Clarke critically. “Did you know they used to bury Emperors with their personal slaves, so the Emperors’ secrets would die with them?”

“Is that true?”

“I have it on good authority,” Lestrade said. Clarke’s incredulous look reminded him that not everyone had the benefit of a Jasper to share the finer points of slave history and culture. “So you think I’m out of line to wonder about it?”

Clarke drifted further into the room and perched on the edge of the table. “It can’t make a bit of difference to us what the masters’ business is. We serve the same either way, don’t we?”

“I suppose,” Lestrade said with careful neutrality. 

“Only I got to thinking.”

“Yes?” Lestrade turned back to the sink to fold the towel. He’d found witnesses often spoke more freely when not under direct scrutiny.

“Mrs. Turner came in just now to announce a visitor. You remember Lady Eva, from that dinner? Her. She’d come to see Lord Charles, but she didn’t want to wait, and could she please talk to Lord Gus instead, can you imagine? And rather than receive her in the study or the parlour, he told me to piss off, and said he’d walk with her in the garden.”

“And there’s something strange about that?” Lestrade asked.

“Lord Gus never receives visitors. I mean, his Lordly friends come and see him, but that’s hardly a formal audience, is it? And he certainly never goes walking in the garden with them.”

“Maybe she fancies him.”

“He’s not the kind of man women want to be alone with, Greg.”

When Lestrade turned, he found Clarke curling his hands around the edge of the table, as if to anchor himself to something solid. “Can you show me where they went?” Lestrade asked.

“Oh, that is not a good idea.” Clarke stood. He looked at the door, but made no move to leave. “Why do you even care?”

“I can’t leave mysteries unsolved. It’s a failing of mine, I’ve been told.” Lestrade tried a rueful smile. “What do you say?”

Clarke let out a long slow breath, then nodded. 

In the next minute, they were out in the hazy afternoon sunlight. Clarke led the way through the kitchen gardens to a neatly trimmed hedgerow. He crept forward to a gap in the hedge, then gestured for Lestrade to follow. “They’re in the orchard, there.” 

A gate guarded a path that led down into the shady depths of a grove of gnarled apple trees. Lestrade leaned carefully past the shelter of the hedge to get a glimpse of their quarry. Lord Gus stood in the shade of a squat apple tree, talking in low tones with Lady Eva. He held a folded bundle of papers before him while Lady Eva stood with hands folded across her chest. Clarke leaned out beside Lestrade to get a better view. 

“What does he need papers for?” Clarke asked. “I thought they were just social acquaintances.” 

“Not an engagement present, I’ll wager.”

“Wouldn’t say so, no.” Clarke ducked back behind the hedgerow. “We should not be watching this.”

“Probably not.” Lestrade didn’t move from his vantage point. As he watched, Lady Eva turned away and stepped off the path, but Lord Gus grabbed her wrist and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“What’s he doing?” Clarke hissed.

“Threatening, looks like. Over what, that’s the question.”

Lord Gus pulled a rumpled sheet of paper from the stack and tucked it into Lady Eva’s hand, turned, and strode off down another path. Even after Lord Gus had disappeared from sight, Lady Eva remained frozen.

“She’s alone.” Lestrade scanned the orchard, but saw no one else. “Stay here, I’m going to talk to her.”

“Are you mad?” Clarke grabbed Lestrade’s arm and pulled him back from the gate. “You can’t speak to her. You can’t even look at her!”

“She knows something. I have to.” Lestrade brushed off Clarke’s hands and ducked through the archway. From this distance, he could see how she stood hunched over, and the way her shoulders shook. He paused in the shade of the path a long moment while the Lady composed herself. 

When she unfolded the document Lord Gus had handed her, Lestrade set off down the path. Before he’d gone ten paces, he heard Lord Gus’s sharp voice.

“Clarke, what are you doing here? Skulking?”

“I’m sorry, sir!”

“You will be.” 

A deep pang of fear pinned Lestrade to the spot. The image assaulted him of an informant he’d had--a lad from Hackney—and the crime scene photos of his bloody, lifeless face, the consequence of aiding Lestrade.

He charged back up the path through the gate, and rounded the corner to see Clarke on his knees in the dirt before Lord Gus. Lestrade planted himself in front of the trembling slave. “Leave off him. I’m the one asked him to come.”

Lord Gus stared. “What did you say to me?”

Lestrade stood firm. “I said leave him alone, sir.”

Lord Gus barked out an incredulous laugh that faded into a sharp grin, a copy of his father’s perpetual expression. “Father was right. You are cheeky. Comes of getting above your station.” He reached out to touch the medallion on Lestrade’s gold collar that bore the family crest. Lestrade managed to only turn his head instead of jerking away. 

“You served in a great Lord’s house, now you think you’re something special. Remember, my dear, he didn’t want you. So you can’t be as special as all that.” He snatched his hand away. “Go to the boathouse and wait for me. Clarke, you as well.”  
\--

“Huh. I’d have thought there’d be boats in the boathouse.” Lestrade surveyed the charmingly dilapidated wooden structure that was cheerfully lit from sunshine streaming through the filmy windows. The effect would have been fairly appealing if the walls hadn’t been hung with instruments of discipline: floggers, whips, and paddles. “I don’t have a lot of experience on this sort of estate, but I had the impression that--”

“This is bad.” Clarke pressed himself to the wall just inside the door. “The boathouse is not a good place to be, especially with Lord Gus. This is very bad, Greg.”

“Look at me.” Lestrade steadied Clarke with a hand on his shoulder. “Take a deep breath. It’ll be fine. You didn’t do anything wrong; this is all my fault, so let me take the punishment, yeah?”

“Do you even know what you’re about?” Clarke’s eyes roamed to the tools on the walls before snapping back to Lestrade. “Because from the way you talk, I don’t think Lord Mycroft is quite like Lord Gus.”

Lestrade remembered the first terrified moments he’d spent in the workroom, imagining that Lord Mycroft was coming to punish him. He felt a sad smile turn up the corners of his mouth. “He’s not. That’s why it’ll be fine.”

The wooden door clattered open to reveal Lord Gus, haloed with hazy afternoon sunshine. He walked right past them to begin tugging at a rope tied to one of the room’s slim posts. “Clarke, get the cane. You know where we keep it.”

Clarke made a noise that sounded like protest, but Lestrade shot him a firm look and gave a sharp shake of his head. “Yes, my lord,” Clarke said. He scurried over to a low table by the wall and dipped his hands into a long wooden box filled with water. 

“Greg.” Lord Gus looked over his shoulder to make sure he had Lestrade’s attention. “Clothes off.”

Clarke shot Lestrade another loaded look, but Lestrade ignored it. He wouldn’t be afraid of this posturing boy who called himself a Lord. He’d seen what real power looked like, and Lord Gus couldn’t hope to compare. 

Lestrade tugged off his clothes with brisk efficiency. Without hesitating or trembling or any such thing that would reward the looks Lord Gus kept throwing him, Lestrade did as he was told, negligently dropping his clothes on the rough planking of the floor. 

Lord Gus untied a rope that held a bar parallel to the ceiling and re-tied it when the bar hung just above head height. “Attend, Greg,” he said as soon as Lestrade stood naked. “Hold on to this. Don’t let go.”

Lestrade wrapped his fingers around the bar and settled his feet shoulder-width apart. He had a suspicion that he’d need to hold steady for what was to come.

Clarke come forward and knelt to offer Lord Gus the cane—a thin, crook-handled rattan rod that dripped water.

“Thank you, Clarke. Now tell us, why is it better when the cane is wet?”

“It makes it more flexible, and heavier, sir,” Clarke said to the floor.

“Yes. Why is that better?” Lord Gus prompted.

“Because it hurts more, sir.”

“Because it hurts more.” Lestrade could hear the delight in Lord Gus’s voice. “You’re dismissed, Clarke.”

Clarke bowed his head, but his eyes darted upwards to catch Lestrade’s nod. He backed out the door and closed it behind him. 

Lord Gus took a practice swing with the cane; it whipped through the air with alarming speed. “You’ve shown this family nothing but disdain since you came here.” Lord Gus trailed two fingers down the cane, testing its give. “It’s sad, really, to see a slave embarrass himself this way. Reminds me of a girl who thinks she’s prettier than she is. Downright pitiful.” Lord Gus’s exultant grin persisted. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Don’t you think you should apologize?”

Lestrade swallowed as he watched water drip from the soaked cane onto the worn wooden floor. Sunlight from the open windows sparkled off the little puddle it created. He wasn’t tied. He could run at Lord Gus and pin him. The lordling might get in one blow with the cane, but Lestrade had the advantage in height and weight. He could almost certainly pin Lord Gus and hold him until help arrived. At which point, Lestrade reflected, said help would likely drag him off Lord Gus and beat him bloody. 

Lestrade lowered his eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry I spoke back to you, sir.”

“Unconvincing,” Lord Gus sighed. “Shall we start with six of the best?” He prowled around behind his victim. 

Lestrade clenched his jaw tight, so that when the first blow laid a perfectly straight line against his arse, he didn’t scream. He wanted to. The pain tore through his nerves and nearly snapped his resolve, but he didn’t like to picture Lord Gus’s exultant grin if Lestrade indulged him immediately. The next blow landed just below the first, then another below that, until five lines of fire danced across Lestrade’s skin. The sixth landed at an angle across the rest, sending Lestrade jerking forward with a pained grunt. His hands slipped on the bar, but he held on.

“The apology, again,” Lord Gus said.

“I’m sorry I spoke out of turn, sir.”

The cane sliced through the air to sting against the back of Lestrade’s thigh. The next landed a matching stripe on his other leg.

“Do you understand your mistake?”

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t escape, so he had to endure. Lord Mycroft had sent him here; there must be some lesson Lestrade was meant to learn. He hadn’t succeeded under Lord Mycroft’s gentle guidance, so perhaps he needed this: perhaps treating him like an animal would drive away thought so he could submit the way they wanted him to. 

“Not yet.” Lord Gus laid his palm between Lestrade’s shoulder blades, cool against his feverish skin. “After this, you’ll remember the lesson. Now, apologize.”

“I’m sorry I spoke out of turn, sir.”

“You’re not yet, Greg, but you will be.” Lord Gus removed his hand.

The cane snapped against Lestrade’s arse again. He had only enough time to suck in a breath between clenched teeth before the next blow fell in a neat, burning line just above its fellow. Then another, a half-inch above that. Sweat dripped down his naked back, lacing the raw welts with fresh agony. Pain built like a kettle coming to boil as stroke after stroke landed at regular intervals, cresting as the cane hit, and waning only to soar again as the nerves recovered. The intensity drove the breath from his lungs and rational thought from his head. 

Across the muscles of his shoulders, up and down the back of his thighs and across his arse, the strokes cut into his skin in a maddeningly controlled rhythm. A brutal blow landed diagonally, creating intersections of unbearable agony and knocking an anguished shout from Lestrade’s throat. 

The beating stopped. 

“You have something you’d like to say, Greg?”

“Sir.” Lestrade had to swallow hard before he could force more words from his dry mouth. “I apologize for speaking out of turn. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry, my lord.”

For a moment, Lord Gus made no response. Lestrade waded through the haze of pain to form cloudy thoughts—what else must he say? But then Gus laid a hand on Lestrade’s bare arm—the gentle touch felt almost welcome as a counterpoint to the throbbing pain up and down his backside. “I believe you are sorry. Though I daresay I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t happen again. And perhaps disappointed.” Lord Gus patted his arm and stepped back. “You may go.”

Lestrade tried to release his grip on the bar he’d been holding on to, but his hands didn’t cooperate. Clenched tight against the promise of more pain, his muscles refused to obey. After long moments of concentration, he managed to pry his fingers from the bar by sheer force of will. When his hands slid free, he collapsed onto the floor. The jolt of rough wood against his fresh welts drove a strangled scream out of him.

“Gus? What is this?”

Lestrade snapped his head up to see Lord Charles standing in the doorway, with Clarke lurking in his shadow.

“Another lesson in discipline, sorely needed.” Lord Gus strode over to the box the cane had come from and laid it in with exquisite care.

“My dear boy,” Lord Charles said with a tightening of his ever-present grin, “this slave is not our exclusive property. We’re just keeping him warm.”

“I won’t do anything to reduce his value.” Lord Gus stood over Lestrade and smiled down at his hunched form. “If anything, I’m making improvements. What good is a slave with such appalling manners?”

“On your head be it if you bring down any unwanted attention on our house.” Lord Charles nodded towards Lestrade’s back. “Take care those don’t scar.” He swept from the room as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Lord Gus hastened after him, but stopped in the doorway to glare at Clarke. “Go help him.” He threw a quick look back at Lestrade. “And you may as well call a doctor.”  
\--

“Greg. Hey, Lestrade. Can you hear me?”

Lestrade prised his eyes open to greet the sight of his pillowcase. Realizations came sluggishly through the fog in his head: he was in the slave dormitory, Clarke was speaking to him, and the pain in his back throbbed in time with his pulse. 

“Greg?”

“Ungh,” he replied. He hoped forming words would be within his reach again at some point. He very much wanted to curse.

“Oh good. Here. They said to make you drink some water. And you can have another painkiller in an hour or so.”

Lestrade gulped greedily from the cup Clarke offered. He tried to push himself up on one elbow for a better angle, and grunted at the stretch of damaged skin across his back. He sank back onto the bed.

“I’m sorry about this. Really I am. Does it hurt much?” 

“What do you think?” Lestrade grumbled.

“I hate the cane.” Clarke sat himself on his bunk, an arm’s length away. “Give me the belt or the paddle any day.”

“I’d prefer to do without entirely.”

“Well, it’s not exactly our choices, is it?” Clarke set down the glass on the rickety table between their beds. “Besides, he doesn’t do it too often.”

“Just often enough.” Lestrade’s laugh sent ribbons of pain unfurling through his body, but still it took him several seconds to stop. He shook his head into his pillow. “I’m useless like this.”

“You’ll feel better in the morning. Lord Charles already said it’s alright not to serve at table tonight, that you should rest.”

“No, I mean I’m useless.” He pushed himself up to look at Clarke. “I can’t help anyone like this. I can’t be what they want me to be.”

“Give it time.” Clarke looked down at his folded hands. “I know it’s not... easy, exactly, this house, but it is simple. Just obey. They’ll always tell you exactly what to do.”

And hadn’t Lestrade been bemoaning just the opposite? Laughter threatened to shake him again, but Lestrade held it down, fisting his hands in the sheets instead. 

“I have to go serve.” Clarke stood. “Get some rest, now.”

Right. Lestrade would need his rest to continue doing this. And the only alternative to this was to give up entirely: destroy any scrap of mercy he’d been granted, and make them send him away somewhere worse, where he’d been of even less use.

Lestrade wouldn’t abandon the pursuit of some meaningful contribution to the Empire: the last shred of his life’s ambition to which he could lay claim. He’d fall in line. He’d follow orders. He would stop thinking himself above all this. He tucked a finger under his collar to pull it taut against his throat until sleep claimed him.  
\--

Moving as slowly as he dared, Lestrade shuffled into the kitchen to take his place among the house’s slaves. So familiar was his routine that he had sat down, muttered a bleary “good morning,” and poured a mug of coffee from the communal pot before he noticed a sixth person at the table. 

Mrs. Turner saw his look, and leaned in to mutter, “That repair man or plumber or whatever he is, the one Aggie’s sweet on. He’s been hanging around.”

The man had stringy brown hair and a sparse beard, and his face was turned against Agatha’s neck as he whispered in her ear. At Agatha’s high-pitched giggle, Tom slammed his empty mug on the table and surged to his feet. The happy couple looked up, and Lestrade met the eyes of the interloper. 

Pale, gray-green eyes in an unmistakable face.

Lestrade turned away from the table and pushed past Tom to the garden door, abandoning his coffee.

Sherlock caught him up among the apple trees. “Lestrade, stop. Stop, I said.”

Lestrade kept walking. “You’re not my master, Lord Sherlock.”

“I said stop.” Sherlock rushed forward to plant himself on the path, barring Lestrade’s way.

Lestrade stopped. He shoved his hands in his pockets so he could clench his fists against the pain less obtrusively. 

“You look wretched.”

“So sorry my appearance doesn’t meet with your approval.” Lestrade straightened his shoulders, thankful for the dulling influence of the painkillers.

Sherlock offered his patented “you understand nothing” glare. He seemed to be waiting for something. When Lestrade bowed his head and remained silent, Sherlock frowned. “What are you playing at?”

“What are _you_ playing at?” Lestrade looked up to take stock of Sherlock’s disguise—impeccable as usual. “Posing as a plumber? Do you even know what a plumber does, my lord?”

“If you’re seeking revenge on me, any fool would tell you that making my brother miserable is the worst way you could have gone about it.”

Momentarily at a loss as to which part of that statement to argue first, Lestrade stood with his mouth open. Then, his objections vied for position, each pouring out of him in turn. “Revenge? Not everything is about—And anyway, miserable? He’s well rid of me. I’m not particularly well suited to life as a lapdog, as you could have easily deduced. I was nothing but an embarrassment to Lord Mycroft.”

“You’d do better if you showed half the stubborn pigheadedness with him as you do with me. If he wanted a slave to simper and bow and bat his eyelashes, he has two or three of those in his collection to do for guests. You’re an idiot.”

“Ta very much.”

“Why are you here?” Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Mycroft wouldn’t have sent you away as punishment. You must have him truly frightened.”

“He wanted me gone.” Lestrade knew he couldn’t prevent Sherlock from finding clues in his words, but he made his voice passably steady, keeping back as much of the shameful story as he could. 

“No...” Sherlock’s eyes slid from point of point on Lestrade, doubtless finding all manner of evidence to fuel his deductions. “He would have offered you the chance to leave, which means he’d hoped you wouldn’t.”

“If he says go, I go. Who exactly is the master here?”

“Who indeed.” The corner of Sherlock’s mouth curled up in a smirk, and then he waved a dismissive hand towards the house. “Well, you won’t be staying here.”

“That’s not your decision.”

Sherlock sniffed and tilted his chin upwards.

Lestrade sighed and looked up at the heavy grey sky. “Alright, what?”

“Well, for a start, Charles Augustus Milverton is a serial blackmailer and generally unrepentant criminal.”

Lestrade raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Quite obvious. I had only to look at his ashtrays and the layout of his garage. And a second thing—“ Sherlock slapped his hand against Lestrade’s back. Lestrade couldn’t suppress a harsh gasp as pain flared and sang along the healing welts from yesterday’s caning. “He has violated the terms of your lease. My brother doesn’t like his property to be damaged.”

Lestrade rolled his shoulders back and pushed down the pain of his ‘property damage.’ He looked up to find in Sherlock’s face the excited glint that signalled the joy of the chase. “Blackmailer?”

“Quite.”  
\--

Lestrade didn’t see Sherlock again until after the evening meal, but he gave a sympathetic ear to Agatha’s complaints about Escott the plumber’s waning interest as they cleared the dining room. When the Lords were safely ensconced in the billiard room, Lestrade retreated to the kitchen, where he found Sherlock still in his plumber garb, lurking with a cup of tea. 

“Good.” Sherlock leapt to his feet and threw the lock on the kitchen door. “Now, quickly, before that wretched woman comes back. What is the layout of his study?”

“What is it you plan to do, exactly?” Lestrade asked. He’d learned never to assume where Lord Sherlock was concerned. “If you have some evidence against Lord Charles, why not just go to the Yard?”

“Please, Lestrade.” Sherlock treated him to a trademark scathing glare. “Your bumbling former colleagues wouldn’t be able to punish a Lord for this crime in any way that would meaningfully deter him.”

“But you do have evidence?”

“This man has ruined a dozen Lords and Ladies, and in doing so has corrupted a whole network of slaves, servants, and family members whom he’s compelled to provide potentially harmful information.” Sherlock abandoned his tea and prowled around the table to Lestrade. “He is the truly insidious kind of criminal whose vice is glaringly apparent to all who have dealings with him, and yet he’s above the law. Only someone like me can hope to take him on.”

“You sound pretty delighted by the whole business,” Lestrade said with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened all month. He has letters that compromise the supposed virtue of Lady Eva Miles and is seeking to extract a small fortune in exchange for his silence. No one’s dared to go against him, and I have a chance to beat him, here in his own lair.” Sherlock pressed his hands together, and circled the table at a fast clip, looking moments away from capering for joy. “Once I find his safe, I’ll be able to finish—“

“It’s behind the Turner in his study,” Lestrade broke in.

“What?” Sherlock whirled around.

“There’s a safe in the study, on the east wall, behind a painting. I’ve seen him take papers out.”

“Yes, ah, good.” Sherlock said quickly. “Meet me in the back hallway after the others have gone to bed.” Sherlock pushed open the door to the garden and stepped out.

“Sherlock.” Lestrade sped after him. “What are you planning to do?”

“Oh, what?” Sherlock laughed from the darkness of the garden path. “Are you going to betray me to your master?”

“Lord Charles isn’t my master,” Lestrade snapped.

“Hm. Tonight.” Sherlock melted into the darkness.  
\--

Lestrade slipped out of the dormitory and stole down the stair, listening at every step for an order to halt. The narrow corridor that led between the kitchen and the dining room had a door that opened into the study; in the dim light of the sleeping house, Lestrade could see it was ajar.

“Lurking, Detective Inspector?” said a smooth baritone voice.

Lestrade closed his eyes as a shudder ran through him; the pain of his welts protesting the motion dragged him back to the moment. “Don’t call me that,” he whispered. 

“Yes, of course.” Sherlock had the grace to sound at least a bit chagrined. He slipped past Lestrade to the study door and eeled into the dark room. “It will take a few moments to get the safe open,” he said when Lestrade followed. “Keep watch while I work.”

“Just stand here and be quiet, then? That I’m qualified to do.”

Sherlock crept to the opposite wall and touched the frame of the landscape that hung above the fireplace with its merrily crackling pile of logs. His searching fingers must have found some sort of clasp, because with just one touch he turned the painting on its hinge to reveal a large green safe set into the wall. Sherlock slipped a slim case out of tools out of his trouser pocket and began to work.

Lestrade placed himself just inside the main door to the room, where he could see the servant’s entrance and the patio door, and watched Sherlock work. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Oh, small talk. Wonderful.” Sherlock worked in silence for another minute before he spared a glance for Lestrade. “Client.”

“You’re in private practice now?”

“No one at the Yard will work with me.” Sherlock gave the safe’s dial a vicious turn. “But Mycroft has been encouraging my pursuits.”

“Lord Mycroft is helping you with your detective work?”

“Not helping, no.” He turned the dial a bit to the left. “Watching.” Another turn. “Meddling.” Another. “My brother wants to keep me within the sphere of his wholesome influence. He thinks if I’m kept close by, there’s less chance that I’ll...” Sherlock waved his hand.

“That you’ll relapse,” Lestrade said slowly.

“Yes.”

Lestrade considered Sherlock’s appearance; even beneath his disguise, he had lost the desperate pallor he’d had when he’d been using. “How long?”

“One hundred twenty-two days, fourteen hours and forty-eight minutes.”

Lestrade calculated the dates in his head; he’d been a slave about that long. “How is it?” he asked.

“Dreadfully dull at first. Better, now.” Sherlock leaned his ear against the safe. “There.” The safe door swung open. 

In the shadowy light, Lestrade couldn’t see its contents. “Do we have our evidence?”

Sherlock looked up sharply. He pushed the safe door most of the way shut and shoved the painting more or less into place. “Quiet, now.” Sherlock grabbed Lestrade around the wrist and tugged him back through the servants’ entrance. 

“Get off,” Lestrade hissed.

Sherlock’s hand clamped down over Lestrade’s mouth, and the other hand tugged his gaudy collar, restricting Lestrade’s air while reminding him—as if he could forget—of his rank.

“Be still,” Sherlock whispered into his ear. “Someone’s coming.”

Lestrade nodded once. Sherlock took his hand away from Lestrade’s mouth, but maintained his grip on the collar. “Just listen.”

Sherlock positioned himself at the door. Lestrade leaned in closer, straining his ears for the sound of some alarm, or shouts of “intruder!” Instead, he heard Lord Charles’ voice.

“Let me see what you have. If the letters you’ve brought can be useful to me, you’ll get what’s owed you.”

“As will you, Lord Charles,” said a second voice. 

Lestrade budged Sherlock over to claim a sliver of the cracked open door just in time to see a petite blonde woman in a collar throw off the hood of her cloak.

“It’s you.” Lord Charles stepped in front of the fireplace, and Lestrade drew back quickly from his line of sight, and contented himself with listening. 

“I told you I’d find a way to repay you for what you did.”

“I offered you a chance to avoid ruin by the simple expedient of passing me certain information—a perfectly reasonable proposal which you refused,” Lord Charles said.

“You asked for the one thing I couldn’t give. I would have given anything else—anything you asked.”

“You had nothing I wanted. And your esteemed mistress did suffer so eloquently when she learned of her precious slave’s former dalliances. I imagine she’ll be a useful object lesson to others I deal with in the future.”

“She’s not your lesson,” the woman said, so softly Lestrade could barely make her out. “She couldn’t bear the... She’s dead.”

“My dear, that makes the lesson all the better. But your usefulness may well be at an end. Tell me, is there any reason I shouldn’t rouse the household right now and have you executed for threatening a Lord? Have you brought something to bargain with?”

“In point of fact, I have.”

Lestrade tensed and took the chance of peeking through the doorway. Sherlock pushed him back with a hand on his chest and threw him a warning look. 

“She has a gun,” Lestrade mouthed.

“Yes,” Sherlock whispered under the sound of continuing conversation in the next room. “And she has my blessing to use it as she sees fit.”

“That’s not the law of the Empire.”

“Not, but it is justice.” Sherlock fixed his eyes on Lestrade’s heavy collar. “Or do you still believe they’re one in the same?”

The sound of a gunshot tore through the study, and then two more in quick succession. Sherlock and Lestrade rushed to the door in time to see the woman stand over Lord Charles, who lay bleeding on the floor, and grind the heel of her shoe into the fallen man’s face. 

Sherlock pushed forward, and at the creaking of the door, the woman started and fled the way she’d come. Sherlock strode into the room and threw the bolt on the opposite door. 

Lestrade stood in the doorway watching the holes in Lord Charles’ chest seep blood. Specks of red stained the dead man’s face.

“Lestrade!” Sherlock had the painting pushed aside and the safe open. “Quickly, the fire,” he commanded.

Between the two of them, it was the work of less than a minute to cast the entire contents of Lord Charles’ safe—letters, contracts, USB drives--into the flames. The sound of voices and footsteps seemed to echo from all over the drafty old house, growing louder every second; obviously the sound of the shots had roused someone.

As the last of the papers curled up in the flames, Sherlock grabbed Lestrade by the arms. “Go out through the garden, then upstairs. Make sure you’re with the other slaves when the police arrive. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“Won’t they question you?”

“Perhaps. But I’m a high-ranking Lord,” Sherlock said, employing every ounce of arrogance Lestrade had ever seen him display. “I’ve much more advantage than you did when facing the Imperial Police. Go. Now, Lestrade.”

Lestrade backed away, skirting the growing pool of blood under Lord Charles’ body. With one more look at the man’s ruined face, he turned and left the scene behind.  
\--

Lestrade stood against the wall of the corridor outside the dormitories, listening to the others speculate about the commotion downstairs. 

“I bet it’s burglars. An escaped slave looking for a quick bit of cash. That’s what the world’s coming to these days,” Mrs. Turner said, shaking her head.

“I hope it’s nothing to do with Escott,” Aggie said, with a sideways look at Tom. “We’d been meeting up for a walk some nights, but I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. Hope he hasn’t done anything rash.”

“I hope he has,” Tom grumbled. 

Clarke continued to cast looks in Lestrade’s direction every few minutes, but he said nothing. 

Lestrade, for his part, stood very still, concentrating on the throb of lingering pain from his welts to distract himself from worrying about what was going on downstairs. Sherlock could be providing a detailed description of the slave who’d shot Lord Charles, and then leading a massive hunt to bring the girl in and execute her. He could be spinning some elaborate tale that implicated god knows who for the murder. He could have told off the officer in charge of the scene and gotten chucked out on his ear. Or  
he could have buggered off entirely. In that case, Lestrade knew who the Met would question first.

At half-three, Sherlock came bouncing up the stair, stripped of his disguise and looking well turned out and altogether regal in his usual coat and scarf. The other slaves, even Aggie, shrank bank from a Lord they didn’t recognize. Lestrade rushed meet him at the end of the hall. 

“What’s happened?” Lestrade asked.

“The police are sorting it out to the best of their abilities, which is to say quite poorly. But I’ve told them the essential facts.”

Lestrade threw a look back towards his fellow slaves, but they’d all withdrawn to the dormitory. “Did you tell them who the woman was, who shot Milverton?”

Sherlock brushed an invisible piece of lint off his coat. “I didn’t get a good look.”

“Pity.” Lestrade managed a small smile, but it faded quickly. “So you’re done here, I suppose.”

“Yes, quite.” He turned and headed down the stairway, just like that. Lestrade watched him go with a clench of panic squeezing his chest. Life had been less unbearable, for a short time; just having Sherlock in his life reminded him that he’d been worth something once. 

Sherlock paused at the bottom of the steps and looked up. “Come along, Lestrade.”

“I...” Lestrade took a step forward before he remembered himself. “I’m not a pet, Lord Sherlock. I have an assignment here.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You won’t like it if he has to send someone to get you.”  
\--

On the long, silent ride to the Holmes estate, Lestrade did not look at Sherlock, no matter how long or obviously he studied Lestrade. He concentrated on holding himself off the car seat as much as possible, and riding through the pain when even this car’s fine shocks allowed a bump. 

“She didn’t even die,” Sherlock said at last.

Lestrade turned to observe Sherlock’s intent gaze, but he couldn’t pluck Sherlock’s meaning out of thin air. When they’d worked together, he’d developed great patience for providing Sherlock an audience as he spun out his deductions. After tonight’s events, he was in no mood to humour anyone. “Who?” he asked.

“Andrew West’s fiancé. Totally recovered. And clean, now.” Sherlock folded his hands together. “Nobody died. Why do you persist in torturing yourself over such a small thing?”

Lestrade gritted his teeth. This day could only conclude with a discussion of the event in his life he least wanted to revisit. “You wouldn’t understand, sir.”

“Yes, stupidity never ceases to confound me,” Sherlock snapped. 

Lestrade fortified himself with a deep breath. Sherlock was his social better, and in any case, he had uncovered and stopped an incorrigible criminal tonight. Sherlock might be a prat, but he didn’t deserve Lestrade’s ire. “Have you ever felt real loyalty to something?” he asked, careful to make it a neutral question rather than an accusation. “I was meant to be upholding the law, and I didn’t. I deserved to be punished for betraying it, whether someone died of my mistake or not. I’m lucky, really, to have another chance to be of use to someone, despite what I did. I’m grateful for your brother’s help. And yours.”

“As you should be,” Sherlock said without any real heat.

Lestrade looked down at his hands. His fingers were threaded together to distract him from the constant fuzzy pain of his punishment: the punishment he’d earned by failing spectacularly to live up to the requirements of his assignment. “He won’t want me back.” 

“I fail to see how my brother can have any interest in someone whose thinking is so backward.” Sherlock collapsed against the car seat, as if the weight of his genius oppressed him terribly.

“He doesn’t have any interest in me,” Lestrade said. He could clearly picture the distance in Lord Mycroft’s expression as he instructed Anthea on his reassignment.

“More than backwards. Positively hopeless,” Sherlock lamented. “Have you spent any time at all in my brother’s company?”

“Of course I have.”

Sherlock tilted his head to show Lestrade his disdainful expression. “Then I’m amazed you failed to observe the difference in the way he regards you as compared to any other slave or, indeed, any other person in his acquaintance.”

“He doesn’t keep anyone long, anyway.”

“Don’t be obtuse.” Sherlock threw up one hand. “In fact, stop talking. I am not discussing my brother with his—“

“With his slave,” Lestrade finished.

“With his lover, I was going to say. And now you’ve put me off my breakfast. Shut up. I have to think.” Sherlock pressed his palms together and tucked them under his chin, and there ended the conversation.   
\--


	4. Chapter 4

The formidable walls of the Holmes family seat seemed almost to glow in the first pink light of dawn. Or perhaps, Lestrade reflected, his relief at seeing the place again coloured his impression. In any case, he’d been glad to see the last of the Milverton house’s stark exterior in the flashing blue lights of a half dozen emergency vehicles. 

As soon as the car pulled to a stop, Sherlock threw open the door and leapt from the vehicle. Lestrade followed more slowly, feeling the full extent of every stiffness and ache Lord Gus’s beating had earned him. No sooner had he stepped out of the car than Lord Sherlock was upon him. 

“Take that off.” Sherlock plucked at the monstrosity of a collar Lestrade wore. “Why anyone thought that suited you is something even I’ll never be able to grasp.” 

Lestrade fumbled at the clasp, which came apart with an ungraceful snap. Before it could fall, Sherlock lifted it by a heavy link. “Hm.” To the driver, who stood close by the car, watching them, Sherlock said, “Do you have his--? Ah yes, there.” 

The driver held out a hand across which lay a plain black collar Lestrade recognized immediately. 

Lestrade rubbed a hand over the back of his neck; he felt strangely light, free of that golden chain, but he knew better than to think a bare neck made him a free man. Even aside from the tracking chip, Lestrade’s loyalties bound him. He’d come back here with Sherlock, which must mean that he hadn’t entirely given up hope that he could redeem himself in Lord Mycroft’s eyes. He certainly hadn’t distinguished himself in this last assignment, but if what Sherlock had hinted at was even partially true, Lestrade hadn’t entirely destroyed his chances of making things right—as right as they could be, at least. 

Lestrade picked up the offered collar and fastened it around his neck. Sherlock, who had been watching him carefully, gave a satisfied nod before turning away.

Sherlock dashed up the steps to the main door two at a time, while Lestrade followed as best he could at a slower pace. A uniformed guard, a blonde Lestrade knew by sight but not by name, swung the door open to admit them. Sherlock disappeared up the stairs without a word. 

The guard nodded to Lestrade, then set off to lead him through the darkened corridors Lestrade had thought he’d never see again. Soon, he recognized the path they were taking. “We’re not going to the slave quarters?” he asked.

The guard threw a significant look over her shoulder. “He left orders for you to be brought to him as soon as you arrived.”

She led on in silence through the public wing until they passed through the familiar door that led to the small library, where Lestrade had first met Lord Mycroft. 

In the library, Anthea sat on a wooden chair beside the door to Lord Mycroft’s office, typing on her Blackberry. Her head snapped up when she saw them enter, but the guard marched right past her, and Lestrade could only spare a glance before the guard rapped on the door.

“Come.” Lord Mycroft’s clear voice made Lestrade release a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The guard pushed open the door and motioned Lestrade inside. 

Lord Mycroft sat at his desk, impeccably groomed in a crisp grey suit despite the early hour. The weeks hadn’t changed him much; except for a certain thinness about the mouth, he was the same man Lestrade had held in his memory. Lord Mycroft finished writing a note on the document before him as he said, “Thank you, Wood. That will be all.”

The guard nodded her acknowledgement, but Lestrade hardly noticed her retreat. His attention remained fixed on Lord Mycroft. 

After the door closed, Lord Mycroft turned his attention to Lestrade for the first time. His face betrayed no emotion, but his eyes darted from point to point across the length and breadth of Lestrade’s form, amassing data the same way Sherlock did. His gaze landed on Lestrade’s face. “Gregory,” he said evenly.

“Lord Mycroft.” Lestrade bowed his head in deference.

Lord Mycroft folded his hands on his desk. “They beat you.”

Lestrade kept his eyes down. He didn’t know if Sherlock had told Lord Mycroft what had happened, or if Lord Mycroft had deduced the situation for himself. Neither possibility would have surprised Lestrade. “I shamed them, my lord,” he explained.

“How?”

“Spoke out of turn, sir.”

“Spoke your mind, you mean.” Lord Mycroft rose to his feet, prowled around the desk, and halted before Lestrade. “Let me see.”

Lestrade drew his shoulders back, and managed to stop himself making any sound at the pain the movement caused. He had no wish for Lord Mycroft to see the ugly markings from his punishment; he hated the idea that Lord Mycroft might think him weak. “Sir, it’s not-- ”

“Now,” Mycroft said in a tone that stopped major Lords in their tracks. 

Lestrade stripped off his shirt first. He folded it neatly and placed it on the chair by the desk. He toed off his shoes and suppressed a wince as he bent over to tug off his socks. He slid his trousers down with his pants, moving slowly so as not to strain the knitting wounds, and stepped out of them. Once naked, he stood at attention, with his hands folded before him and his head bowed.

Lord Mycroft walked a slow circuit around him. Lestrade knew how he looked; he’d examined his injuries in the tarnished mirror of the slave dormitories. The bruises, which had been a deep purple in the afternoon, had probably darkened by now. The sharper lines of red welts that overlaid the bruising stood out prominently. The marks crisscrossed his arse, lined his thighs, and stretched across his shoulders. 

Lestrade stood still and let Mycroft see it all: the full extent of the punishment he’d brought upon himself.

When Lord Mycroft completed his circle around Lestrade, he asked, “What else?”

“I’m fine, sir.” Lestrade remembered Sherlock’s words about the lease. “I’m not permanently damaged.”

“What else did they do?”

Lestrade shook his head. “Nothing, my lord.”

Lord Mycroft cupped Lestrade’s jaw in his hand to look him in the eye. “Do not lie to me.”

Pinned under his master’s gaze, Lestrade could well understand how the Empire’s enemies quailed when faced with Lord Mycroft’s full attention. Lestrade made himself breathe before answering so he could select his words carefully. “This is the worst of it, sir. The other punishments were not as severe.”

“They didn’t...otherwise violate our arrangement?” Lord Mycroft asked with perfect neutrality. 

“No. No, sir,” Lestrade said, with a soothing tone he’d often used to calm hot-tempered colleagues. The anger in Lord Mycroft’s eyes seemed to cool a fraction, so Lestrade seized his chance. “I recognize the inconvenience this must cause you, and I want to apologize for—“

“Gregory--” Lord Mycroft held up his hand, but Lestrade plunged ahead. 

“Sir, I only want to say— “

“No, you will listen, Gregory.” Lord Mycroft drew himself up to his full height and raised his chin; Lestrade fell silent. “You do not have to serve me. I would not want you in my house unwillingly. But you will not subject yourself to this. You will not be... reduced in that way, do you understand? I forbid you to allow anyone to treat you in that manner. It doesn’t matter to me what sort of punishment you think is appropriate. I will not stand idly by and allow you to be abused. That I demand, by my right as your master. Is that understood?”

Lestrade found his mouth had fallen open during that little speech. He quickly closed it. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Get dressed.” Lord Mycroft turned away and retreated to his desk. 

Lestrade watched his master as he carefully replaced his clothes. Lord Mycroft had picked up a document from the stack before him, but seemed to be reading the first paragraph over and over. 

Lestrade’s courage burned a bit brighter. By the time he’d finished tying his shoes, he knew what he meant to do. He stood and placed himself at attention before Lord Mycroft’s desk. “Sir.”

“You may go,” Lord Mycroft said without looking up from his document. “In the morning we can discuss your reassignment.”

Lestrade didn’t move. “Sir, I want to stay here.”

Lord Mycroft let out a small breath that might have been a sigh. “Gregory, it was not my intention to send you somewhere you’d be unhappy. We will find you a better posting.”

“I don’t want another posting. I’m staying here,” Lestrade said, and was rewarded by Lord Mycroft finally looking at him. “I can be of use to you, sir I know I can. If I have... failings, I can get better. I’ll do whatever is necessary to live up to your standards.”

Lord Mycroft stared in silence for a few seconds before finally nodding once, a crisp incline of the head. “If that’s how you truly feel, I’m certain something can be arranged. Now, you need to rest.” He held out a hand toward the door, until Lestrade nodded and began to leave. “Send Anthea in on your way out.”

Lestrade passed through to the library and found Anthea hovering by the door, typing with one hand. She touched Lestrade gingerly on the shoulder, and spoke softly, “I never thought they’d hurt you. I only knew... I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

“It’s fine.”

Her fingers stilled on the keys, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “I should have been more careful. I am sorry.”

“It’s forgotten.” He placed his hand over Anthea’s. “I’m back now.”

“It’s about time, anyway.” A small smile made its appearance. “Jasper’s been going mad with the schedule.”

“Anthea, I am waiting.” Lord Mycroft’s call carried a sharp edge.

“Welcome home.” Anthea squeezed his hand and began to move past him, but Lestrade stepped back to block the doorway. Anthea stopped, and her eyes darted between Lestrade and Lord Mycroft at his desk.

Lestrade addressed Lord Mycroft with his head bowed. “Sir, I wanted to say that Anthea couldn’t have known about Lord Charles. She asked my opinion on where I wanted to be sent. She’s not to blame for what happened, my lord.”

“No, I daresay she’s not.” From the corner of his eye, Lestrade saw Lord Mycroft tilt his head back to face the ceiling. “Anthea, please see to it that the doctor is brought to check on Gregory. You’re dismissed for the evening, both of you.”  
\--

Lestrade woke up in his own bed with his face pressed into the pillow. He hadn’t yet processed the warm feeling of relief that had bubbled up inside him when he’d learned that his room hadn’t been changed or reassigned. A light sheet covered him from the waist down; now he was awake, he felt the early winter chill on his bare skin. Still, a chill seemed preferable to the rough weight of blankets over healing wounds. He braced himself against the pain of moving, then rolled onto his side and cracked an eye open to check the time. His eyes slid past the clock when he realized he wasn’t alone. 

In the room’s single straight-backed chair sat Sally, arms folded, slumped against the wall and dozing.

“What?” The word came out a strangled croak. Lestrade’s dry mouth reminded him that he’d swallowed some pills under the doctor’s watchful eye; that would explain why the pain felt muted and distant. 

Sally’s eyes flitted open. “Oh good, you’re up.” She stretched like a cat, impossibly long and graceful in her white robe over black stripy pyjamas. No one in Lord Charles’ house had been half so comfortable in their skin. “How do you feel?” she asked. 

“Better, actually. Not like total shite.” A quick glimpse down at his naked skin revealed that although the pain had faded, the horrible colours of the bruises and welts had not. Lestrade reached down to pull the sheet further up, to cover his marked-up shoulders. “Sorry about that.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Sally said with a shrug. “Who do you think put you to bed last night when the doctor finished doping you up?”

“Well, thank you.” Yesterday, Lestrade might have felt more shame at Sally’s seeing the evidence of the punishment he’d earned. Today, the thought bothered him less; if this beating had led to getting a second chance with Lord Mycroft, he’d bear the marks stoically. 

“I’m just glad you’re back.” Sally offered a rare smile that Lestrade found himself returning wholeheartedly.

“So am I.” Now that Lestrade could vividly imagine a life outside of this house, he found he didn’t want to. He could never go back to his life in London, but he’d built something here: something worth preserving.

“I knew you wouldn’t abandon us,” Sally said. “I told them so.”

“Told who?”

“The others. You’re far too stubborn just to give up like that, without a word. And I was right, wasn’t I?” Sally rose to her feet. “I told Jasper I’d fetch him as soon as you were up and about. Stay put, yeah?”

Sally disappeared, leaving Lestrade alone with thoughts of his fellow slaves. He hadn’t considered that his departure would have any effect whatsoever on the community of slaves, except perhaps to serve as a relief that such an incompetent was out of their midst. 

The fact that Sally had not only discussed him, but indeed defended him left him puzzled; he hadn’t given her much reason to believe in him, after all. At least now he had a chance to build on that and prove himself worthy of a place in the house. If he already had Sally’s trust, he’d be sure not to lose it.

Lestrade wormed his way out of bed without aggravating his injuries, and set about employing some of that stubbornness Sally had mentioned to get properly dressed. By the time Jasper knocked, he’d made himself fairly decent. He shuffled to the door and pulled it open. 

Jasper looked paler than Lestrade remembered, and thinner, too, as if the intervening weeks had burned him down to his essence. “You look terrible,” Jasper said by way of greeting.

“Ta very much.” Lestrade nodded in acknowledgement of Japser’s haggard appearance. “It might take some time to readjust to the household standards you keep.”

Jasper returned a weary smile. Lestrade waved him in and closed the door behind him. 

“So you are staying?” Jasper asked.

“If he’ll have me.”

“You’re staying, then.” Jasper sat himself in the chair Sally had recently occupied. When Lestrade remained standing, he raised an eyebrow. “The doctor’s back. He wants to bandage you up, now you’ve got a chance to rest.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Lestrade said sharply. He’d never liked seeing the Yard’s official physician after case-related injuries, and this felt even more uncomfortable: like he was a piece of livestock being sent to the vet. “Lord Charles had someone look at me when it happened; he’s already said it won’t scar.”

“If the master bestows a privilege like this, it’s not yours to refuse, understand?”

Lestrade’s irritation drained away. Not all slaves were as lucky in their master as Lestrade. He’d learned that lesson well. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

Jasper frowned at his quick capitulation, but didn’t question it. Instead, he asked, “What did they use?”

“Cane.” Lestrade could still picture the long silhouette of it, dripping water in the hazy sunlight.

“Bad?”

“Hurt like hell. But I’m alive.”

“And Lord Charles is dead.”

“Yeah.” The red specks of blood on the face of Lord Charles’ corpse rose in Lestrade’s vision. “That he is.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Of course not.” Lestrade couldn’t meet Jasper’s eyes. He may not have pulled the trigger, but he’d stood idly by when he’d known what would happen.

“Good.” Jasper leaned back in his chair. “It would have taken even Lord Mycroft a bit of time to clear up such a thing, and he’s got a lot on at the moment.”

“Right.” A helpless laugh escaped Lestrade. “Good thing.”

“The son survived?”

“Lord Gus. He’s the one handy with a cane.”

“If you will, in a few days, I’d like to hear everything you can tell me about him. Or you could write it down, if that’s easier. Head personal slaves of various houses find it useful to share information about the proclivities of certain Lords within our communities. It’d be useful to know what others can expect from Lord Gus.”

“Oh.” Lestrade hadn’t realized slaves from different houses had any communication. He filed that information away, another reminder that he still had much to learn before he could be a real asset to Lord Mycroft. “Yes. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“In the meantime, you’re to rest. The doctor says you’re not to go back on duty for a week, at least.”

“He hasn’t even looked at me today!” Lestrade protested.

“So it may be longer.”

“That’s preposterous.” Lestrade felt tension gathering all over, stiffening his spine as he considered a week alone with his thoughts and his injuries, locked away from everything he’d wanted to earn back. “I can serve.”

“I know that you can,” Jasper said calmly. His eyes flicked down the length of Lestrade’s body, as if he could trace the marks through Lestrade’s clothes. “Has Lord Mycroft seen what they did?”

“Yes.” Lestrade remembered the flat, tight expression Lord Mycroft had worn when he’d seen the damage.

“And?” Jasper prompted.

Lestrade cursed under his breath. “He won’t want to be reminded of that every time he seems me wince.”

“Knowing when to rest is not a weakness, Gregory.” Jasper nodded toward Lestrade’s mostly-empty shelves. “I can bring you some books, if you like.”

“Can I come to muster?” Lestrade asked. “The master won’t have to see me.”

“Why?” Jasper raised an eyebrow.

“If I can’t do anything for Lord Mycroft right now, at least I can know what’s going on in the household.” After weeks alternating between inanimate ornament and punching bag, Lestrade needed a reminder that his position could be—would be—more than just the physical. “The information might be useful.”

Jasper nodded slowly. “Rest today. Tomorrow you can join us.”  
\--

Seven days of near-isolation in the personal slaves’ wing had given Lestrade a mild case of cabin fever. On the first morning after his enforced rest period, he woke earlier than usual and headed immediately for the kitchens. 

“It’s not at all! And I’ve been doing it this way for thirty years and more, so I should know.”

Lestrade smiled at Mrs. Hudson’s voice, so delightfully familiar, before pushing through the kitchen door. 

“I’m only saying that you might learn something if you try a different way.”

That voice stopped Lestrade in the doorway, where he was confronted with the sight of both Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner bent over the day’s housekeeping schedule at the worktop.

Mrs. Hudson looked up at the sound of the door. Her frown brightened into a welcoming grin when she saw him. “Gregory, dear.” She bustled over to plant a kiss on his cheek, then led him in by the elbow. “You go have a sit. I’ll bring your coffee and some toast. So nice to see you back, there’s a good lad.” She pointed him in the general direction of the table by the window and hurried back to her work. 

Perched opposite Lestrade’s usual chair sat Clarke, fresh faced and impeccable in the livery of a footman. He gave a little wave.

Lestrade sank down into his seat and took a long look around the kitchen before squinting at Clarke. “I’m missing something, here.”

“It’s good to see you, Greg, I mean it. After what happened, and they just whisked you away like that, I thought for sure... “ Clarke dropped his eyes to the table. “Anyway, Mrs. Hudson kept saying you were just resting up. But seeing you with my own eyes, that’s better.”

“How long have you been here? And not that I’m not glad to see you, too, but why?”

“Just two days. Our contracts were sold when they sorted out the estate. Seems they’re liquidating most of Lord Charles’ assets to pay off his debt to society. With his father’s criminal activities and all, Lord Gus will be lucky to have a roof over his head, at the end of it. The Empress’s justice will be served.”

“Long may it be so,” Lestrade said with a smile.

“Anyway, Lord Mycroft bought our contracts. The procurer said we’d be here for a bit until they figured posts for us.”

“You and Mrs. Turner?” Lestrade threw a look across the room to see Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner both fussing over the coffee.

“All four of us, actually. Aggie and Tom, too. Lord Mycroft bought the lot.” Clarke leaned in and lowered his voice. “I figured you’d put in a good word. Thanks for that. There are so many worse places we could have ended up.”

Mrs. Hudson swept by the table and pressed a mug of strong black coffee into Lestrade’s hand. “Toast will be along in a mo,” she called over her shoulder.

“Right you are about that, Clarke. Right you are.”  
\--

“Here, sir. It’s not quite straight.” Lestrade adjusted the knot on Lord Mycroft’s tie. “I thought you had a valet... Collins? Carter? Something like that?”

“Cooper. He’s been redistributed.” Lord Mycroft finished doing up the buttons on his waistcoat. “My staff is so security conscious these days. I gather there was a concern of that nature.”

“There wasn’t... an incident, sir?” Lestrade hated the idea that Lord Mycroft had faced some personal danger in his absence. 

“No, nothing like that. In the meantime, I’m making do with footmen and your able assistance.”

“Just don’t ask me to do cufflinks, sir, I’m absolute crap at—“ Lestrade stopped himself; no matter how comfortable he felt with Lord Mycroft, he wasn’t just a mate. His master deserved the respect due to his position. “Of course, I’ll do whatever you like.”

“I’m capable of fastening my own cufflinks, Gregory. I’m not entirely helpless.” Lord Mycroft stood before the dressing table, examining boxes of cufflinks.

Lestrade came to stand beside him. “You know, one of the new lot is a trained valet, sir.”

“The ones from Appledore Towers. Your former colleagues.”

“Yes, sir. It was good of you to take them. It could have gone badly for them in the liquidation.”

“Gregory, your attributing such altruism to my motives is very flattering, but you shouldn’t give me more credit than is due.” Lord Mycroft found the links he wanted and began fastening one through his left cuff. 

“What’s the reason, then, sir?”

“Lord Charles Milverton attempted to increase his social capital by abusing a slave leant to him by me, the most highly-ranked Lord in the district.” With a frustrated grimace, Lord Mycroft managed to close one cufflink, and started fiddling with the other. “By his ill-use of what was rightfully mine, he sought to convince others of his influence and power.”

“And now those that saw him attempt it know he’s dead and branded a criminal, his estate’s been liquidated, and you’re in possession of his valuables.”

“Precisely.” The cufflink slipped from Lord Mycroft’s hand and bounced on the carpet. “Damn these things.”

“Here.” Lestrade knelt to retrieve the stray cufflink and caught hold of Lord Mycroft’s right sleeve to put the stubborn thing right. He stole a glance up at Lord Mycroft as he worked. “Did you know this would happen, sir?”

“What do you think?”

“You told me you didn’t, my lord.” Lestrade finished fastening the cufflink and stood to face Lord Mycroft. “I believe you.”

“We must always be prepared to find the advantage in any situation, no matter how detrimental it may first appear. Remember that.” Lord Mycroft retrieved his jacket from the hanger on the wardrobe and shrugged it on. “There. Am I presentable?”

In fact, Lord Mycroft’s tie was still slightly askew. It gave him an ever-so-slightly rumpled look, adding a touch of human to the air of Lordliness. “Very much, sir.”

“Good.” Lord Mycroft led the way to the door. “So, a trained valet, you said?”  
\--

A few days back on the job made Lestrade’s experience with Lord Charles seem like nothing more than a surreal holiday from this, his real life. Kneeling by Lord Mycroft’s desk, Lestrade kept his attention on the conversation with Lord Poole. He hadn’t lost the knack for remaining properly still and appropriately positioned while making as thorough a study as possible of Lord Mycroft’s visitors. 

After Lord Mycroft had shown his guest out, he returned to the sofa and settled his hand against the back of Lestrade’s neck. That signal had its intended effect; Lestrade breathed out slowly, bringing his mind back to his body even as he unfolded from his formal kneel.

“Observations, Gregory?” Lord Mycroft asked on his way back to his desk.

“His slave was well behaved, but not exactly the usual type for a personal slave. Former military, maybe, sir.”

“Good. Yes, he acquired this one Imperial wholesale, less than a year ago.”

“Why military though, sir?” Lestrade asked as he stretched to give his knees a break. “Surely he doesn’t have many generals to impress. Is it protection?”

“I suspect so. He hasn’t the resources to maintain a proper staff of bodyguards.”

“Hm.” Lestrade pictured the slave again: bowing a fraction too far forward, as if in self defence, and flinching at loud noises. “Pardon my saying, sir, but I don’t expect a former soldier as cowed as that man would make a particularly effective bodyguard.”

“No, I suspect you’re right.”

Lestrade settled onto the floor beside Lord Mycroft’s chair. “What about your bodyguards, sir?”

“What about them?”

“There are plenty of guards around the house, but when we went to London, I don’t remember seeing any, sir.”

“A great hulking brute or two lurking about hardly sends the right message. Enemies see something so ostentatious as a challenge, and if a Lord needs such obvious warding, the masses of citizens begin to feel unsafe. No, I have different measures in place for my protection.”

Lestrade thought back to the arrangements for the visit to the Chilean Embassy. “Plainclothes guards.”

“Among other things.” Lord Mycroft set aside the papers he’d been scanning and picked up a new stack. “In any case, I don’t expect that many people are interested in assassinating Lord Poole.”

“Why not, sir?”

“He consistently loses at the racetrack.” Lord Mycroft turned his attention to his notes. 

Lestrade leaned against his master’s chair. Speculation battled with reason as he considered where Lord Mycroft might have gone in his absence, and whether or not his security detail had kept him sufficiently safe. Surely his staff was among the best in the Empire. 

As Lord Mycroft wrote, his hand slid through Lestrade’s hair to rest at the back of his neck, above the simple collar. When Lestrade bowed his head under the touch, Lord Mycroft snatched his hand back. 

Lestrade chanced a look upwards. Lord Mycroft’s pen had stilled and his head turned away. 

Lestrade drew in a deep breath. He saw, in that moment, a glimpse of the man he’d seen in Lord Mycroft’s room the night he’d been sent away; not a powerful Imperial Lord, but a man imperfect and conflicted as any other. Lestrade settled a hand on Lord Mycroft’s leg, halfway up his thigh. “Sir?” His fingers pressed along the luxurious fabric of Lord Mycroft’s trousers, creeping upwards. “Are we finished with the day’s audiences?”

“Yes,” Lord Mycroft said on a barely audible exhale. His hand clamped down over Lestrade’s. He fixed his eyes on their twined hands, and did not look at Lestrade. 

Lord Mycroft’s body whispered to Lestrade through his stiff posture, the clenched muscles of his thigh, and the warmth of his hand, but the man himself said nothing. 

“Sir,” Lestrade began.

“We’re finished for the day.” Lord Mycroft lifted Lestrade’s hand and reached down to place it at Lestrade’s side. “You’ll join me in the morning. Anthea has the schedule.” He stood and made for the door before Lestrade could move.

“Yes, sir,” Lestrade muttered to an empty room.  
\--

 

Audiences tapered off as the holidays approached. Lestrade found himself less often in Lord Mycroft’s presence. After Lord Sherlock arrived in a whirlwind of pique and began making outrageous demands of the household staff, Lord Mycroft almost never had a moment alone. Or as alone as one could be with a personal slave in attendance. 

A normal Saturday evening would usually involve an outing of some kind, or a formal dinner with highly-ranked guests, but on this occasion, it meant three places sat at one end of the dining table, and the table slaves drawing lots to see who had to carry in the food and brave the attention of the entire Holmes family. At such a small gathering, Lord Mycroft had no need for a personal slave, so Lestrade brought his tablet to the kitchen and tried to read some articles his master had suggested while listening to the servers’ comments and complaints about the family meal.

Once the family was ensconced in the parlour after supper, the staff was summarily dismissed. Lestrade wandered the halls, looking for a bit of company in the darkened manor. He found no one in the personal slaves’ lounge. No one in the courtyard having a smoke. No one in the kitchen, which when he’d left had still been bustling with slaves finishing the washing-up from dinner. From the stairs at the far end of the kitchen, Lestrade caught the sound of distant voices. 

With a final glance over his shoulder to reassure himself that the ground floor was indeed deserted, he crept down the stairs and trough the basement corridors. The increasing cacophony led him to through the labyrinth to emerge in the cavernous wine cellar. 

The arched brick ceilings were hung with fairy lights. A fir tree strung with tinsel stood perched atop a wooden barrel labelled “rum.” Tinny music blared from a portable radio wedged onto a makeshift table between a cheese platter and a plate of sausages. All around the room, men and women in collars sat on upturned kegs or stood in little groups, chattering brightly. 

“Lestrade! Over here, mate.”

Lestrade turned at the greeting, though it took him a moment to recognize the man; he’d looked different on the football pitch. “Liam!”

Liam clapped him on the shoulder, sloshing a bit of the dark red liquid from his mug over both their shoes. “We’d have sent someone to fetch you if you’d taken much longer.”

“Is this a regular thing, then?” Looking around, Lestrade saw many slaves he knew by name, and some he knew by sight only.

“Very like. Not as if we advertise, but new blokes like you find their way at some point. Oh hey, welcome back. Tommy—that’s the new gardener—said you did a stint elsewhere.”

“Short one, yeah.”

“Welcome back, then. Happy Christmas!” With a final pat to Lestrade’s shoulder, Liam plunged back into the teeming mass of revellers. 

“Gregory!”

Lestrade scanned the crowd and found Sally waving him over. He joined her in the corner only to find Mrs. Hudson and Anthea standing beside her. All three held heavy clay mugs of something white and frothy. 

“Everyone’s having a drink, and I’m wandering about the manor. Was one of you going to tell me about this?” He pointed an accusing finger at his gathered friends. 

“You’re here now,” Anthea pointed out. 

“And there’s eggnog.” Mrs. Hudson took a sip of hers. Her cheeks had a pleasant red tinge to them. 

“So this is what, the company Christmas party?” Lestrade asked. 

“We celebrate whenever we get a chance,” said Mrs. Hudson. “Goodness knows there’s not much else going on in the house.”

“That’s the truth,” Lestrade muttered. “I feel like I haven’t done anything useful all week.”

“Doesn’t happen often. Be grateful.” Anthea took a long pull from her mug; Lestrade noticed her Blackberry was nowhere in sight. 

“Still, makes things a bit dull, doesn’t it?” Lestrade grumbled. And yes, perhaps he was just put out that he hadn’t had a chance to have a moment, let alone a conversation, with Lord Mycroft since he’d got the brush-off last week. 

“Lord Mycroft doesn’t like to mix business with family, dear,” Mrs Hudson explained.

“Can you blame him, with that psychopath traipsing around?” Sally asked. She rolled her eyes at the glances she received from her companions. “Sorry. Lord Sherlock. Anyway, like to cause an international incident, that one.”

“The master just wants a bit of quiet time with his loved ones,” Mrs. Hudson said. “And Lord Sherlock will be on his best behaviour, you’ll see. Lady Holmes visits so seldom, it’s important things are just right. A nice Christmas tea in the drawing room. Roast goose for dinner. Tree in the hall. When the boys were little, you wouldn’t believe the decorations. And the presents.”

Lestrade felt a jolt of panic. “Are we meant to do something? For presents? I mean, am I expected to--?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sally said. “He owns you already. What more could you give him?”

“We always get something nice on Boxing Day, though, from the family,” Mrs. Hudson interjected. 

“Remember the year Jasper got a bottle of some posh French wine?” Sally asked.

“Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint-Emilion,” Anthea supplied.

Mrs. Hudson chuckled behind her hand. “By nightfall he was out in the stableyard with Sherman, singing bawdy pub songs.”

“No, not Jasper.” Lestrade glanced around the cellar until he spotted Jasper holding a half-full wineglass and chatting to an aged under-gardener. 

“The very same.” Sally raised her mug in a salute.

“So don’t be so glum, Gregory.” Mrs. Hudson patted his arm. “You’re meant to be enjoying yourself, same as the family.” 

Lestrade thought of the previous holiday, spent alone at his flat, and later at the scene of a robbery gone wrong: a young couple dead on the pavement outside Waterloo station, with blood grotesquely, festively red on the woman’s white shawl. 

Then he looked out on the chattering crowd, making merry in the brightly lit cellar. He turned a hopeful smile on Mrs. Hudson. “Is there any eggnog for me?”  
\--

The days after Christmas passed almost as slowly as the ones before: Lord Mycroft had only requested Lestrade’s presence a handful of times, and that for minor errands. Boxing Day passed uneventfully, and the day after, the weather turned too cold even to stand in the courtyard and enjoy the secondhand smoke of the stableboy’s cheap cigarettes. 

Lestrade attended muster, though without any guests aside from the family, the meeting was more of a cursory check-in than a strategic assembly. After Jasper dismissed them, Lestrade remained behind. He knew all of the other personal slaves by name, now, and exchanged pleasantries with a few as they filed out. 

As Sally passed, he noticed a glint of gold in her ears. “Hey Sally, are those earrings new?”

“Do you like them?” She pulled her hair back to reveal the filigreed disks of gold. “My present from the family. Found them in a box outside my room yesterday morning. Like being a kid again, a little bit. What did you get?”

“Um. I haven’t opened it,” Lestrade said quickly. There’d been no box outside his room. There’d been nothing at all. A strand of the hope he’d been gathering slipped out of his grip, but Lestrade shook it off quickly. “Building up the... anticipation. ‘Scuse me.”

Lestrade made his way through the room to approach Jasper, who was seated at a high table in the corner, filling in a report. “Jasper. May I ask your help with something?”

“I’d rather that than the alternative.”

“Ah, yes. There’s a book you had, a while back. I looked for it in the library, but I couldn’t find it.”

“Which book?” Jasper looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

Lestrade pressed his lips together hard. Rather than put himself through the indignity of trying to describe the book, he mustered his courage to say the title. “Compleat Techniques for Slaves’ Sexual Performance.”

“That book.” Jasper shook his head. “You didn’t need it.”

“Yes, I know that’s what I said.” Lestrade lowered his voice. “Listen, I thought... I didn’t please him. I guess I’m not what he’s used to, so—“

“Of course you’re not what he’s used to, lad.” Jasper’s expression tightened into a disapproving moue. “I was mistaken, before. A book like that would be of no use to you.”

“Then how am I meant to—“

“The master’s proclivities are not mine to discuss.”

“Yes, which is why I’m asking for—“

“—But it’s been my personal observation that the master responds to you as he has not to other slaves.” Jasper gave him a hard look. “I suggest you not jeopardize that by attempting to become something you’re not.”  
\--

Lestrade had seen a dozen or more invitations to New Year’s Eve parties cross Lord Mycroft’s desk, but in the aftermath of the family holiday, after Lady Holmes and Lord Sherlock had departed, Lord Mycroft hadn’t been in a very social mood. He took a few business meetings after Boxing Day, and received a few guests for tea or dinner, but there’d been no grand balls or fancy parties. 

Come December 31st, he’d not gone out all day. In the evening, Lord Mycroft sat in his library, reading, with Lestrade kneeling at his side. At two minutes to midnight, he’d poured them each a measure of brandy. He’d clinked his glass against Lestrade’s without a word and stood looking out the window at the darkened grounds beyond as the grandfather clock struck the first hour of the new year.

The walk to Lord Mycroft’s quarters had likewise been silent. Once inside, Lord Mycroft stopped by the sofa and stared into his empty glass. 

Lestrade stepped forward and wrapped his hands around the glass, twining his fingers with his master’s. “I’ll take this.”

“Thank you, Gregory. Please send Clarke in when you go.”

“Clarke’s not coming, sir.” Lestrade set the empty glass down on the mantel and held onto it. 

“Oh?”

“I told him to take the evening off.”

“Did you.” Lord Mycroft’s voice sounded entirely flat: neither questioning nor reprimanding. 

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade abandoned the mantel and returned to stand before Lord Mycroft. “I believe we have some unfinished business.” He angled his head to align correctly and leaned in fraction by fraction, allowing plenty of time for objections. Instead, he heard Lord Mycroft’s breath fray. 

When the distance closed between them, Lord Mycroft’s lips parted on a shallow inhale, allowing Lestrade to delve inside with his tongue, giving a taste of what was on offer. Lestrade kept his hands firmly at his sides, resisting the temptation to touch, to hold on and take rather than give. He delivered one last close-mouthed kiss, then drew back, cast his eyes deferentially downwards, and waited. 

“Gregory.” Lord Mycroft’s breathing hadn’t smoothed. “Your staying here is not contingent on performing these kinds of duties.”

“I understand that, sir.” Lestrade reached for the buttons on Lord Mycroft’s jacket, but Lord Mycroft caught his hands and held them.

“I don’t want you to regret your actions, Gregory. You don’t have to do this.”

“Do you want me to, sir?”

“That is not the issue.”

“To me it is, sir.” Lestrade had a suspicion about his interpretation of their last encounter, now that he’d had more time to consider. “Did I do something wrong, last time? Was I not good?”

“You were...” Lord Mycroft’s mouth hung open for a moment as he seemed to search for words. “I very much enjoyed what we did.”

“Right.” Lestrade nodded, answering that part of himself still sitting on the floor in the en suite, going quietly to pieces. Lord Mycroft couldn’t have enjoyed finding his personal slave hyperventilating after they’d first been intimate; such a reaction would be enough to make any man, even one as clever as Lord Mycroft, draw the wrong conclusion. Lestrade would correct that mistake. “And have I struck you as overly deferential, sir? Sycophantic? Guilty of needless flattery?”

“No,” Lord Mycroft said slowly.

“Believe me, then, when I say I’ve thought about this, and I’d like you to take me to bed, sir.” 

“I see.”

Lestrade leaned in to bring his mouth closer to Lord Mycroft’s ear. “And when I say I’ve thought about it, I mean I’ve thought about it often, and in many different arrangements.”

Lord Mycroft’s eyes drifted shut, and his grip tightened on Lestrade’s hands. “Gregory, when I told you that you were not to let anyone take advantage of you, I included myself in that command.”

“I understand, sir.” 

Lord Mycroft opened his eyes and fixed Lestrade with the same focused attention he turned on potential allies: the penetrating gaze that sought to strip away a man’s words and uncover his true intentions. “Alright.” He released Lestrade’s hands. 

Lestrade went to work on the buttons, stripping off first Lord Mycroft’s jacket, then his waistcoat, and draping them over a straight-backed chair. 

Lord Mycroft unknotted his tie and pulled it out of his collar, a long line of red silk. “Wait,” he commanded. “Close your eyes.”

Lestrade obeyed, only to feel the length of silk wrap around his head, then firmly across his eyes. “Sir?”

“I don’t want you trying to guess what I want.”

“That’s my job, isn’t it,” Lestrade said unsteadily. First, Jasper wouldn’t let him read up on his duties, and now this.

“What would please me most is for you to enjoy this.” Lord Mycroft’s finger traced Lestrade’s brow, just above the tie. “You’re to concentrate on that, understand?”

The promising rumble in Lord Mycroft’s voice made Lestrade swell in the confines of his trousers. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Lord Mycroft tugged Lestrade’s shirt up over his head, neatly avoiding the makeshift blindfold. The shirt hit the rug with a soft plop. “Now, this is critical. If you don’t like something I do, you’ll say ‘stop.’” 

“I can’t say ‘stop’ to you, sir.”

“You can, and you will.” Lord Mycroft thumbed open the button on Lestrade’s trousers, which provided a jolt of teasing pressure against Lestrade’s confined arousal. He hooked his fingers on the fabric, and began tugging it downward, a maddeningly slow drag over sensitized skin. “Say it.”

“Sir, I can’t say—“

“Say it, Gregory.”

“Stop, sir.”

Immediately, Lord Mycroft pulled his hands away, leaving Lestrade untouched. “Good. Now remember that. If you need to, you will say it.”

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade had no intention of calling a halt to the evening’s proceedings, but he swallowed the word down and held it as proof he’d chosen correctly in this. He sat still, then, dragging in slow breaths and waiting for a touch that could come at any second. He could feel the heat of Lord Mycroft’s body, still close, still watching him. “Sir,” he said at last. “Would you carry on? Please?”

“As you like.” 

Firm hands stripped Lestrade of his remaining clothes. With his eyesight taken away, each touch, coming unexpectedly out of the dark, produced a pleasurable shiver.

“Come to bed,” Lord Mycroft whispered from behind Lestrade, breath hot against the nape of his neck.

With a few careful steps, Lestrade made it to the bed and settled himself onto his back. He turned his head to listen for any movement from Lord Mycroft. For a long moment, he heard nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut behind the blindfold and pictured how he must look, stretched out on display: grey hair, slight paunch, a lifetime of wear-and-tear on a body that hadn’t been world class to begin with. He hadn’t been this exposed the last time.

Lestrade fought back the nagging doubts, reminding himself of the interest and appreciation he’d seen in Lord Mycroft’s eyes whenever he’d dared to look. Besides, Lord Mycroft had seen him at his worst, when he’d returned beaten and bloody from a failed assignment, and hadn’t flinched from Lestrade then. He’d judged correctly, he knew he had. 

Lestrade allowed his legs to fall open. His cock, harder by the second, curved up towards his belly. “Sir?” he prompted.

“Grip the headboard.” The tremor in Lord Mycroft’s voice had returned. Lestrade wrapped his hands around the vertical slats at the head of the bed. “Your hands just there. Good.” 

Lord Mycroft’s weight settled onto the mattress beside Lestrade. He splayed a hand across Lestrade’s collarbone, just below his collar. Lestrade felt a flush spread down his chest and up his neck, as if radiating from Lord Mycroft’s touch. 

The hand traced the planes of his chest, mapping each muscle and bone. A second hand joined the first in gripping Lestrade’s waist, just holding on, as if those hands could contain all of Lestrade between them. Lord Mycroft’s thumb traced the hollow of Lestrade’s hip. 

Lestrade hadn’t imagined he’d be so helpless before his master; he’d meant to prove his worth, not lie back and be taken slowly apart. Still, perhaps his surrender could be proof in itself. Lestrade spread his legs wider.

One hand dislodged its grip and sought further down, tracing the outside of Lestrade’s leg, down to his knee, eliciting a flinch. The touch drew away at once. “Gregory?”

“Ticklish.”

“Ah,” Lord Mycroft said, but the touch did not resume.

A fond smile turned up the corners of Lestrade’s mouth. “I didn’t say stop, sir.”

“A fair point.” Lord Mycroft shifted further down the bed. He drew Lestrade’s leg up, settled it in his lap and bent Lestrade’s knee around his waist. The position left Lestrade helplessly exposed. The hand that had stroked his hip now traced the long muscle of his thigh, tantalizingly close to where Lestrade’s balls hung, heavy between his legs. 

“Do you know I’ve an extensive collection of classical art?” Lord Mycroft’s voice came from very nearby, as if he’d leaned down to watch the movement of his hand on Lestrade more closely. 

“Sir?”

“Paintings. Religious art. Sculpture. One of the best collections in the world, I’m told.” The hand continued its journey down Lestrade’s leg to smooth over his calf and cradle the arch of his foot. “But it seems I own nothing more exquisitely proportioned that you.”

“Ah--” Lestrade’s denial died unspoken as a hand fitted itself around his cock and moved it first this way, then that, as if exploring it from different angles. Lord Mycroft was examining the most intimate part of him, committing the shape and texture of him to memory, as Lestrade imagined he might with a new sculpture. The thought caused Lestrade’s cock to twitch helplessly in his master’s hand.

Lord Mycroft’s other hand slid down the crease where Lestrade’s thigh met his torso, and lower still, to cup his balls and roll them gently in his palm. The other hand traced the base of Lestrade’s eager cock with one feather-light touch, then dipped back to tease one finger against Lestrade’s hole.

Lestrade squeezed the slats of the headboard. His master’s skilful touch had brought him dangerously close to climax. “Sir.”

“Yes?” All motion ceased.

“I should be... You shouldn’t have to...” Lestrade fought to string words together. “Sir, tell me what you want.”

“I told you already, Gregory. Do you remember?”

Lestrade nodded. He splayed his legs more widely, as if that could relive the exquisite pleasure that threatened to undo him. 

“We can stop, if you like. We’ll stop.”

“No!” Lestrade’s shout of protest kept Lord Mycroft’s touch from abandoning him this time. “Please. Sir, I want to keep going.”

“Then we will.” The hands disappeared for a moment, and then a slick finger returned to trace Lestrade’s entrance. Though he had no way of knowing where Lord Mycroft’s attention was focused, Lestrade gave a clear nod. The finger that had been teasing him eased inside. 

Even without being able to see, the image of Lord Mycroft delving his hand between Lestrade’s spread legs, burned itself into Lestrade’s brain, which kept up a helpless chorus of _he’s inside me, inside me, inside me_. Another finger joined the first, twisting and stretching together in relentless rhythm.

Through the haze of pleasure, Lestrade wondered if Lord Mycroft was enjoying this as much as he was: if being with Lestrade in this way would chase away the heavy cares that had weighed on him for days. Lestrade rolled his hips, screwing himself down on his master’s thick fingers, determined to draw Lord Mycroft as thoroughly into abandon as he himself had fallen.

Lord Mycroft leaned in close, pressing his fingers deeper inside Lestrade as he moved his mouth to Lestrade’s ear. When he spoke, his ragged voice was that of a man whose cares had been thoroughly banished. “May I have you, Gregory?”

“Yes. Please, yes.” 

Lord Mycroft’s fingers slid from inside him, and a hand returned to Lestrade’s hip. “Turn. Yes, like that.”

Lestrade scrambled onto all fours and resumed his grip on the headboard. 

Lord Mycroft moved as well, and the mattress dipped behind Lestrade. A hand stroked up and down Lestrade’s back. “Do these still hurt?”

Lestrade’s distracted brain took a few seconds to process that Lord Mycroft meant the marks from the cane, which had faded to a few pinks lines. “No, sir.” Lestrade shifted his shoulders back, as if he could shake off the memory of the injuries. “I can’t feel them anymore.”

“Good.” Lord Mycroft dragged his hand down the length of Lestrade’s spine, and traced one of the longer lines that ran across the top of Lestrade’s arse. “I don’t want his mark on you. I don’t want anyone’s mark on you.”

“Not even yours, sir?”

“No one should want to put his mark on you.” Lord Mycroft spread his hand against the small of Lestrade’s back. “To mar something so fine with ownership should be a crime.”

“I’m already yours, sir.”

Lord Mycroft’s fingers dragged up the length of Lestrade’s spine to trace the edge of his collar. “That doesn’t make it right.”

Lestrade shook his head, hard. He hadn’t battled through his own doubts only to lose his master to other misgivings. He abandoned his grip on the headboard to wrap a hand around Lord Mycroft’s wrist and pull. 

Lord Mycroft moved with a startled grunt and landed on his back. Being blindfolded made manoeuvring more difficult, but Lestrade managed to throw a leg over Lord Mycroft to straddle his waist. He planted his hands on Lord Mycroft’s chest and rose up on his knees. Even with arousal screaming in his blood, he made himself halt. 

“Do you want to stop, sir?”

“Go on.” Lord Mycroft’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Gregory, please.”

Lestrade wrapped a steadying hand around Lord Mycroft’s cock and sank down slowly. His body stretched around his master, inch by inch as Lord Mycroft breached him. Lord Mycroft’s hands caught against Lestrade’s sweat-slick skin—his thighs, his sides, his chest—providing bright spots of sensation in the unending push of Lord Mycroft entering him. 

Lestrade pressed down the last inch quickly, and groped blindly before him until his hands caught against the headboard to steady himself.

“Stay a moment.” Lord Mycroft’s hands traced down Lestrade’s chest, then around his hips to smooth over his arse, then up the outside of his thighs until both of them folded around Lestrade’s straining cock. He began, slowly, to stroke Lestrade from root to crown. 

The spike of pleasure found Lestrade grinding himself down against Lord Mycroft. The strokes alternated, first gloriously hard, then unbearably light, firm around the base, then thumbing at the head. As his pleasure built, Lestrade worked himself on Lord Mycroft’s cock, rising up and sliding down again as his thighs began to shake, and clenching his muscles to keep from ending too soon.

Just when Lestrade thought he might be helpless to keep from finishing, Lord Mycroft’s touches turned teasingly light again—just a single finger tracing the wet slit of his cock. 

“What—“ Lestrade licked his lips and tried again. “What are you doing?” he asked. 

“Learning you.” The touch circled the crown of Lestrade’s cock and traced the vein that ran the length. “I want to know every inch of you, Gregory. What makes you squirm. What makes you come. I want to know how to give you every pleasure in this world. If you’ll let me. Gregory. Will you let me?”

“Yes. Anything. Yes.” Lestrade squirmed frantically on top of his master. 

Lord Mycroft squeezed both hands around Lestrade and stroked faster. He twisted his fingers around the head at the end of the stroke, and that pushed Lestrade past his limit. He bent backwards with a shout, every muscle clenching tight as his orgasm poured out of him. He pictured his white come dripping down Lord Mycroft’s long, elegant fingers and spattering against his broad chest; the image knocked another weak spurt out of his spent cock. 

Lestrade pitched forward, fighting to keep upright while every muscle in his body seemed to be riding the crest of a powerful afterglow. He tightened his grip on the headboard and rolled his hips forward against Lord Mycroft’s body. “You,” he panted, unable to form any kind of proper sentence. “Please.”

“Yes.” Lord Mycroft released Lestrade’s over-sensitive cock to grip his hips with surprising force and thrust up into him. Lestrade felt a swell of pride that his master, usually so proper, so restrained, could lose himself in this: could shed the mantle of his lordly responsibility and forget himself in pleasure freely offered. 

“That’s it,” Lestrade urged. “Come on, that’s just right.” He managed to push himself up and slide down to meet each thrust in a frenetic rhythm.

Short, frantic sounds that may have been either grunts or malformed words drifted up from the bed. Lord Mycroft’s hands slipped from Lestrade’s hips to clutch at his arse, as if he could go deeper, bring them closer. His body went rigid beneath Lestrade, and his breath stopped for a long moment before breaking on a wordless shout as he spilled his release inside Lestrade. 

Lestrade let go of the headboard to execute a controlled slump onto Lord Mycroft . He gulped in air heavy with the smell of sex, sweat, and his master. Beneath him, he could feel Lord Mycroft’s chest rising and falling, resuming a more sedate rhythm. In the darkness behind the blindfold, Lestrade felt his eyes getting heavy.

“Gregory?” Lord Mycroft’s voice, quite close to his ear, pulled him back from the edge of sleep. 

“Hm.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, sir.” He groped for Lord Mycroft’s hand, which lay limp at his side, and squeezed it tightly. “I won’t run away. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”  
\--

The holiday lull didn’t last long into January. Lestrade berated himself several late nights in a row for ever lamenting how “boring” Christmas was. Clearly Lord Sherlock had been a bad influence. 

It seemed every acquaintance in London urgently desired Lord Mycroft’s attention. As they exited the latest gathering to emerge into the chill of a London night, Lestrade had to glance at the placard on the building to remind himself where they’d been: the Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador. Of course. 

Lestrade shoved his bare hands in his pockets as he followed Lord Mycroft down the stairs. He fixed his eyes on Lady Correra’s personal slave, who had an unusual mark—a brand, perhaps?—just visible on her thigh at the hem of her short skirt. He squinted at it until two men rushed down the stairs, breaking his line of sight. Then he hurried to catch up with his master, who’d already reached the pavement. 

“We’ll have your car brought ‘round, my lord.” The uniformed attendant tipped his hat to Lord Mycroft and sent his colleague off with a wave of his hand. 

“Thank you.” Lord Mycroft gathered his scarf more tightly around his throat. Very quietly, for Lestrade’s ears only, he said, “I often wonder why we haven’t declared war on Ecuador.”

“You can’t attack them just for throwing boring parties, sir,” Lestrade said reasonably.

“No, I suppose not.” Lord Mycroft spotted one of the other guests leaving the party and moved to intercept him. “Lord Fontecilla. A word?”

Lestrade caught sight of his master’s car arriving, third in the line of nondescript black cars in front of the Embassy. The first escort vehicle, a Bentley staffed by household guards, pulled up behind. Buoyed by thoughts of heated seats and a warm interior, Lestrade headed for the car, confident that Lord Mycroft would follow in his own time. 

As Lestrade approached, the driver stepped from the vehicle to open the door. Though he wore the household uniform, Lestrade didn’t recognize the man. With a frown, Lestrade gave the rest of the scene a quick scan. Across the street, in the midst of the passers-by and departing revellers, the two men who’d rushed down the stairs deliberately turned their backs to the road and hunched down into their coats. Lestrade stopped walking. As soon as he did, the driver reached inside his jacket. 

Lestrade was in motion before his mind had quite caught up with his body. He sprinted down the pavement. “Mycroft!” He darted forward and slammed into his master just as an explosion ripped apart the shiny black car and sent pieces flying in all directions. He tackled Mycroft to the ground and tucked his face into Mycroft’s shoulder as he covered their heads with his arms. A few small chunks thudded against his heavy coat. 

When the shaking of the explosion subsided, his ears began to ring. He pushed himself up and took stock of his surroundings: street lights out, shattered. Car a flaming wreck. Other vehicles also smouldering. Driver a bloody heap on the pavement. One of Mycroft’s security detail down in the street, two more climbing out of the smoking Bentley. Passers-by screaming and running. No imminent threat.

Lestrade tucked a hand under Mycroft’s head and carefully rolled him onto his back. He tugged the scarf loose and pressed two fingers to Lord Mycroft’s neck, feeling for a pulse, listening for breath. The explosion still rang in his ears and vibrated through his skin, preventing him from detecting any sign of life. Lestrade squeezed his eyes tightly closed, shutting out the world to concentrate on his master. And there, there it was: pulse, breath. Lord Mycroft was alive. 

Lestrade pulled back to assess to extent of the damage. Lord Mycroft’s eyes were closed, and what little blood there was seeped sluggishly from a knot on his forehead. Safe enough for now, but needing treatment.

Lestrade glanced up to greet two household guards who pounded up alongside him on the pavement. “One of you, cover the street,” he ordered. “We’re not out of danger yet. The driver was in on it, and at least two men in the crowd. You, get another car, with a driver you trust, plus at least one extra guard. Not here, the next street over, Sloane Street. Pull up there. Have a doctor waiting at the estate.”

The first guard dropped to a crouch a few meters away and pulled her sidearm. Her eyes roved over the street. The other guard jogged away, shouting into her walkie-talkie. By this time another guard, uniformed but streaked with soot, had drawn up next to Lestrade. 

A quick check of Lord Mycroft showed no difference—he was breathing, but unconscious—so Lestrade turned his attention to the newcomer; thank goodness, someone he recognized. “Wood, get someone to flag down the first responders when they get here. I need a fireman or a paramedic to tell us whether he’s safe to move, then they can go on about their business. We’re not taking him to hospital—it’s not safe. And check out the car they’re bringing around to Sloane Street. Make sure the driver is someone you know, or you kick him out and drive yourself. As soon as we have the clear, we’re coming to you.”

By the time she’d nodded her understanding and headed off, a cluster of guards in the uniform of the Ecuadorian Embassy was clattering down the stairs. Lestrade pressed his hand against Lord Mycroft’s chest to make sure he could feel the rise and fall of his breath. Yes, alive. Lestrade would do what needed to be done, then. He hailed the incoming guards.  
\--

Lestrade sat in the back of the nondescript black car, holding Mycroft’s head in his lap. He ignored Wood’s frequent glances in the rearview mirror, but he couldn’t deny the comfort of having someone he knew at the wheel, even if that someone probably didn’t have very charitable feelings towards him right now. 

Lord Mycroft moved fitfully against Lestrade’s restraining hands, but it wasn’t until they’d made it halfway back to the estate that Lord Mycroft opened his eyes. “Gregory?” He tried to sit up, but Lestrade put a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Stay down, sir. There was an explosion. A car bomb, I believe. You were knocked out.”

“Other casualties?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t see many. At least one.”

“Shaw,” Wood reported from the front seat, and Lestrade relayed the information. 

Lord Mycroft nodded. He craned his neck back to look at Lestrade. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Lestrade said. He gave himself a quick once-over to ensure he hadn’t acquired any injuries that he hadn’t noticed in the mad adrenaline rush, and found nothing worse than scraped knuckles from hitting the pavement. “If we’d have made it to the car, though, we’d both be red spots on the roadway.”

“Well. That’s best avoided.” Lord Mycroft folded his hand over Lestrade’s on his shoulder. “And we’re on the way to the estate?”

“Yes. If you’d rather go to hospital, I can have them—“

“No. No, the estate is better. You arranged this?”

“I suppose I did, sir.” Lestrade glanced towards the rearview mirror, but Wood had her eyes on the road. “After the explosion... Well, I’ve handled a few emergencies in my time. I guess instinct sort of kicks in.”

“That it does.”

Lestrade lowered his voice. “I’m surprised your guards listened to me, actually, sir. I thought they might not let me help.”

“They have standing orders.” Lord Mycroft gave Lestrade’s hand a reassuring pat. 

“Pardon?”

“To give you authority if I’m ever incapacitated in a crisis. They did exactly the right thing.”

“Oh.” This time, when Lestrade looked up, he met Wood’s eyes in the mirror. She nodded to him. “Well.” He smoothed a hand through Lord Mycroft’s hair, figuring he could get away with it in the guise of medical assessment. “You should try to stay awake, sir. We’ll be there shortly.”

When they arrived, several guards rushed out to hustle Lord Mycroft inside, leaving Lestrade alone. He retreated to the personal slaves’ quarters. 

In the communal bathroom, he scrubbed blood off his hands—some of Lord Mycroft’s, and some of his own. 

In his room, Lestrade stretched out on his back in his narrow bed. He pressed two fingers to his neck to feel the pulse there. When he closed his eyes, he could see Lord Mycroft’s body lying slack on the pavement, silent and unresponsive. But he’d felt a pulse. Lord Mycroft was alive. He was alive. And he trusted Lestrade to keep him that way.  
\--

After a night of checking the clock every few minutes, Lestrade cleaned up, made himself presentable, and arrived at the servants’ entrance to Lord Mycroft’s quarters at seven o’clock on the dot. A knock garnered a clear, “Come,” and Lestrade slipped inside.

“Good morning, Gregory.” Lord Mycroft sat in the armchair by the fire in his pyjamas and dressing gown, reading the morning paper. If not for the stark white bandage wrapped around his head, it might have been any other morning. 

“Good morning, sir.” Lestrade came to kneel in his proper place at Lord Mycroft’s side. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, fine. The doctors have fussed over me quite enough.” Lord Mycroft folded his paper and set it aside. “Are you alright? No one said you were injured.”

“I’m tough to take down.”

“That you are. The police may want to speak to you. I’ve told them about the likely involvement of the Chilean Ambassador. You remember her two sons, meant to be under house arrest in Edinburgh? Those were the strapping lads you identified to the Embassy guards while I was lying there insensible. It’s quite likely that the statements of the guards should be enough.” Lord Mycroft placed a hand on his shoulder. “If you don’t want to speak to anyone at the Yard, I can put them off.”

“It’s fine, sir. I will if you need me to.” The idea of facing his former colleagues still hurt--he supposed there’d always be a gnawing ache where his police career had been--but the hurt seemed more bearable now that he had a real place with Lord Mycroft.

“That’s settled, then.” Lord Mycroft stared down at him for a long moment, and Lestrade kept still, resisting the urge to return the look. At last, Lord Mycroft lifted his hand from Lestrade’s shoulder. “Gregory, there’s something I meant to give you at Christmas. The circumstances didn’t seem quite right for it, then, but I’d like to give it to you now, if I may.”

“Of course, sir.”

Lord Mycroft stood. Lestrade followed him to the mantel, where Lord Mycroft retrieved a carved wooden box. As he held it out, Lestrade recognized it as one he’d seen Lord Mycroft handling [when he’d come to speak to him](http://brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com/107783.html#Sherlock_House) at Christmas. “Open it.”

Lestrade accepted the box, which was surprisingly light. Under Lord Mycroft’s close attention, he lifted the lid. Inside the box sat a collar: sturdy black leather a half-inch wide, capped along both edges with a thick line of silver. The clasp at the back was cleverly hidden in a curve of silver, making the join almost invisible. At the front, a silver circle housed a simple working of the Holmes family crest. The whole design spoke of strength and simplicity. Lestrade set the box on the end table and lifted out the collar with both hands.

“It’s not much to look at, I know. My great grandfather had it made at the same time he re-forged the family’s ceremonial sword to use in the coronation of Empress Victoria. The silver on the sword is the same that was used to make this design, and the crest, here.” Lord Mycroft touched his finger to the gleaming metal circle. “The leather’s been repaired and reworked over the years, but the design and the materials don’t change. My grandfather presented it to Heston, the personal slave who served him during the Great War. Jasper wore it until my father died. I’d like you to have it.”

“Sir.” Lestrade looked up. The collar felt warm and heavy in his hands. “I’d be honoured.”

Lord Mycroft’s teeth flashed in a bright smile that disappeared as suddenly as it had come. “There is a condition,” he said.

“What is it?” Lestrade looked at his master’s closed expression, then at the collar in his hands, and considered what, if anything, he might be unwilling to capitulate. 

“Promise me. The day you no longer want this, the very same hour you change your mind, you must return the collar. I’ll find you a post, a proper one where you’ll not be mistreated. But you will not wear my collar out of duty or out of fear. Not ever.” Lord Mycroft closed his right hand over Lestrade’s atop the collar. “Do you agree to that?”

“Yes, sir.” Lestrade lifted the collar up, presenting it to his master. Lord Mycroft didn’t take it.

“Again.”

“I promise.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear, my lord.” Lestrade bowed his head and offered up the collar. Lord Mycroft accepted it, laid it carefully around Lestrade’s neck, and pushed the clasp home.  
\--  
\--

 

 

Lestrade had stripped the sheets, carried them to the laundry chute, re-made his bed, lay down and stared at the clock, got up again, and begun arranging his sock drawer when he heard a knock. A quick glance at the clock revealed an indecent hour. Lestrade pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms, braced himself for disaster and opened the door. 

Mycroft stood in the corridor in his shirt and trousers, with his tie hanging around his neck. 

“Mycroft... What?” Lestrade glanced quickly down the hallway, first right and then left, looking for signs of some emergency—fire, intruders, something—before realizing that this would hardly be his master’s first stop in such an event. “What’s wrong?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t hear the bell. Did you ring? I’m so sorry, I should have—“

“No, not at all. I simply...” Mycroft tucked his hands into his trouser pockets. “I can see I’ve intruded. I never meant to—“

“Wait! Just. Wait.” Lestrade scrubbed a hand through his hair and opened the door wider. “Do you want to come inside?”

Mycroft glanced down the corridor. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“No, of course. I’ll come to your quarters, sir, I—“

“Don’t,” Mycroft cut him off. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Alright, then. Don’t stand in the hallway. Come in.” Lestrade gestured inside.

Mycroft stepped neatly around Lestrade and into the room. As the head of this part of the household, Lestrade enjoyed a room larger than most of the slaves’ quarters. Still, it was somewhat smaller than Mycroft’s bathroom, and not nearly so well-appointed. It contained only a bed, a squishy, overstuffed chair, a wardrobe, a half-full bookshelf, and a table that served as a desk when he couldn’t bear to be holed up in his cubby of an office. 

The two stood just inside the door. Lestrade kept his eyes averted as he ran down a list of all the reasons Mycroft might be paying him a visit here, in his quarters, when he’d never done so before. Perhaps his master, too, hadn’t found it easy to sleep alone.

As the silence stretched, Lestrade cast about for a safe topic. At last, he said, “Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Lestrade flipped the switch on the electric kettle perched on the narrow windowsill, another advantage of his rank. He stared at the kettle, feeling Mycroft’s eyes on his back until the water boiled and the kettle switched off. He’d experienced this mood of Mycroft’s before. He would speak when he was ready and not until; Lestrade prepared himself to settle in and wait all night if necessary. 

A stray bag of herbal tea was all he had, so he put the sachet into a cup and let it steep. He put the cup in its chipped saucer to complete the sad picture. “No milk, sorry,” he said as he handed it over.

“Quite alright.”

Mycroft perched on the edge of the squishy armchair, and Lestrade settled for sitting on the bed. 

“None for you?” Mycroft asked after his first tentative sip. 

“Just have the one cup. I don’t get many visitors. Any, actually.”

Mycroft gazed into his tea. “I shouldn’t have intruded.”

“I don’t mind. It’s not like Lord Sherlock, traipsing in and out of the wing at all hours. Half-lives in John’s room, he does.” Lestrade remembered himself and bit back anything else he might have said. “And he can do as he likes. But I don’t mind your being here.” 

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“It’s true.” Lestrade watched his master pretend to sip at the tea, and took pity. He slid to the floor at Mycroft’s feet and settled down with his head in Mycroft’s lap and an arm slung about his waist. The smell of his master reminded him how cold his bed seemed. “Mycroft. Listen. Whatever you need to say to me, you can say it.”

Mycroft smoothed his hand against the back of Lestrade’s head, letting his thumb brush the top of Lestrade’s collar. “I owe you an apology.”

“Pardon?”

“An apology. I’ve been working on a project recently—nothing I can tell you about. I know it must appear as if I’ve become quite distant, but I assure you, it will all become clear in time.”

“Is this to do with Lord Sherlock? You said, days ago, that there was something you needed to do before he could leave. So this project, it’s to do with him?”

“In a way.”

Lestrade curled his hand around Mycroft’s calf. “Can I help?”

“You are helping, Gregory. You’re helping more than you know.” Mycroft’s hand stilled. “I do trust you, you must know that. I simply require a little trust in return.”

“You have it.” Lestrade sat up to look Mycroft in the eye. “You’ve had it a long while.”

Mycroft dropped his gaze to the cup and attempted another polite sip. 

“Oh, leave off. I know it’s awful.” Lestrade rose to his feet, plucked the cup and saucer from Mycroft’s hands and set it on the windowsill. 

“I find I’m rather tired. Perhaps it did have some soporific properties.”

Lestrade eyed his master carefully: the slump of his shoulders and the slow slide of his eyes towards the floor betrayed an exhaustion beyond the physical. “Do you want to lie down?”

“If it’s not inconvenient.”

“Come here, then.” Lestrade settled onto the bed, near the wall and patted the duvet. 

Mycroft levered himself out of the armchair. He toed off his shoes and pulled the tie from around his neck. Lestrade’s eyes followed the long line of silk as Mycroft draped it over the chair back. 

When Mycroft stood uncertainly at the edge of the bed, Lestrade held out his arms, beckoning. With a grateful smile, Mycroft settled himself onto the bed, fitting easily into the space Lestrade had left open for him.  
\--


End file.
